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Quotes of the Day:
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself only listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, so loses all respect for himself and others.
– Fyodor Dostoyesvsky
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
– Samuel Johnson
"Thinking is dangerous. Not thinking is even more dangerous."
– Hannah Arendt
1. Trump Bets Personal Diplomacy Will Break Ukraine War Logjam
2. Give Ukraine the Tomahawks, Mr. President
3. Trump’s Mideast Playbook Is Prime for Ukraine by Garry Kasparov.
4. Trump Says He Would Rather End War Than Send Tomahawks to Ukraine
5. Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan Hits an Early Snag in Gaza
6. Ukraine Braces for New Talks Without the Leverage of New Missiles
7. Israel Still Carrying Out Some Strikes During Gaza Cease-Fire
8. U.S. Is Holding Survivors of Latest Strike Against Alleged Drug Boat
9. Where the U.S. Is Building Up Military Force in the Caribbean
10. Why the China Doves Are Wrong
11. The U.S. Is Tiptoeing Away From Many of Trump’s Signature Tariffs
12. Russia's War in Ukraine Is Starting to Show Cracks
13. The Real Reason the U.S. Army's Recruiting Numbers Are Surging
14. The First 48 Hours of a War With China 'Could Be Ugly'
15. Cronyism and Failed Promotions: Xi’s PLA Purge
16. Military drones will upend the world: The age of hyper-power is here
17. The World’s Taiwan Strategy Runs Through the Philippines
18. Japan’s Likely New Prime Minister Could Unnerve the Region
19. Why Is the US Defense Department Funding China’s Military Research?
20. The Inside Story of the Gaza Deal
21. A big focus on fighting drones at US Army Association show in DC
22. Taiwan's return to China a vital part of post-World War II order
23. The Last Days of the Pentagon Press Corps
24. Defense Trade Press Statement on Media Restrictions at the Pentagon
1. Trump Bets Personal Diplomacy Will Break Ukraine War Logjam
Excerpts:
He has repeatedly expressed surprise that Russia’s war in Ukraine has been the most intractable. “I thought it would be the easiest,” he said last month, “because of my relationship with President Putin. But he’s let me down.”
As Trump’s frustration with Putin has mounted, administration officials have indicated they are considering more tools to pressure Russia.
In recent months, the U.S. has expanded intelligence sharing with Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia and imposed steep tariffs on India, one of Russia’s top trading partners. Speaking earlier this week at NATO, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised “firepower” was coming to Ukraine through U.S. weapons.
Meanwhile, the White House has privately been working with lawmakers who wish to move forward with legislation giving Trump broad authority to enact Russian sanctions—even as Trump noted this week that “it may not be perfect timing” ahead of the summit with Putin. An aide to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said this week that the sanctions legislation could be brought for a vote in the next 30 days, though previous self-imposed deadlines to approve the bill have been disregarded.
...
The Russians typically hammer out a deliverable of some type ahead of leader-to-leader meetings, Peek said, and this time should be no different.
Some analysts see signs that the threat of providing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine is worrying Putin.
“Putin seems unsettled by Zelensky’s trip to Washington and talk of potential Tomahawk supplies to Ukraine,” said Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “The Trump–Zelensky meeting seems intended for Trump to focus on shifting dynamics of the war, possibly tilting in Ukraine’s favor, with the aim of building momentum toward peace.”
Trump Bets Personal Diplomacy Will Break Ukraine War Logjam
The strategy isn’t without risks, with some critics worried a coming summit gives Russia more time to prosecute the war
https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-bets-personal-diplomacy-will-break-ukraine-war-logjam-9e942b59
By Vera Bergengruen
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and Annie Linskey
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Oct. 17, 2025 11:00 pm ET
The meeting of President Trump and senior White House officials with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Quick Summary
- President Trump plans another meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest to seek a breakthrough in the Ukraine war.View more
WASHINGTON—President Trump is betting that one more round of personal diplomacy will deliver a breakthrough in the more than three-year-long war in Ukraine after months of failed peace negotiations.
Behind the scenes, Trump’s team is working to back up the president’s leader-to-leader negotiations with more diplomatic leverage than he exerted in his August summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those efforts will be put to the test when Trump meets with Putin in Budapest in the coming weeks.
Trump’s decision to organize another high-profile summit with Putin isn’t without risk. Trump’s previous meeting with the Russian leader ended without concrete success and was widely seen as a win for Moscow. Trump has so far been reluctant to ratchet up pressure on Putin, and the president’s critics worry that another summit allows Russia to buy more time to execute its war plans.
Hoping to lay the groundwork for an agreement, the U.S. is planning more lower-level meetings with Russia than were held before the Alaska talks, according to administration officials. The U.S. side will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio instead of special envoy Steve Witkoff, a change that was seen as positive by Ukrainian and European officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky left a White House meeting with Trump Friday without a U.S. commitment to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of more than 1,000 miles and could reach targets deep inside Russia.
Trump said he hoped Ukraine wouldn’t need the missiles, suggesting he hoped to end the war through diplomacy. But the president also made clear the threat remains on the table. U.S. officials hope that will force Putin to get serious about ending the war, which began with Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in early 2022.
“Let both claim Victory, let History decide!” Trump wrote on social media after his meeting with Zelensky, saying he had told both leaders this week that “it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!”
Trump, who cast himself as the “mediator president” on Friday, entertained the idea that Putin might be manipulating him into giving Moscow more time to continue attacking Ukraine. Asked if he was worried that he was being played, the president said, “I am.” He added, “You know, I’ve been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well.”
Trump and Putin at the end of a joint news conference after the U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska in August. Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images
Even within the administration, officials have taken note of Trump’s hesitation to push Putin, who so far has shown little interest in concessions needed to make a deal. The White House has put more pressure on Kyiv than on Moscow, one administration official noted.
“There are tools to put more pressure on the Russians economically and militarily—and we’re not using them,” said Daniel Fried, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe.
Fresh off brokering the Gaza cease-fire, U.S. officials expressed optimism that the momentum of one peace agreement could pave the way for another. In the Middle East, Trump declared a successful peace deal while critical details of how to implement it were still unfinished.
But the negotiations with Russia will require a different approach, according to current and former U.S. officials and analysts with experience in the region. Russian officials are focused on process and traditional diplomacy, said Samuel Charap, a veteran Russia watcher and senior political analyst at Rand.
“Trump’s impatience has not allowed a working-level process yet to take hold, and that makes it hard to judge whether, in fact, we are at a moment where it’s Putin’s intransigence that is the core problem,” Charap said. The elevation of Rubio sends a message to Russia that the U.S. is engaged in a process they understand and are comfortable with, analysts say.
In his second term, Trump has reveled in the title of “President of Peace,” brandishing his “peace through strength” approach as proof that sheer willpower can push through deals that end wars. He says he has resolved eight wars, a disputed claim.
He has repeatedly expressed surprise that Russia’s war in Ukraine has been the most intractable. “I thought it would be the easiest,” he said last month, “because of my relationship with President Putin. But he’s let me down.”
As Trump’s frustration with Putin has mounted, administration officials have indicated they are considering more tools to pressure Russia.
In recent months, the U.S. has expanded intelligence sharing with Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia and imposed steep tariffs on India, one of Russia’s top trading partners. Speaking earlier this week at NATO, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised “firepower” was coming to Ukraine through U.S. weapons.
Meanwhile, the White House has privately been working with lawmakers who wish to move forward with legislation giving Trump broad authority to enact Russian sanctions—even as Trump noted this week that “it may not be perfect timing” ahead of the summit with Putin. An aide to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said this week that the sanctions legislation could be brought for a vote in the next 30 days, though previous self-imposed deadlines to approve the bill have been disregarded.
Trump boarding Marine One on Friday at the White House. Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg News
Some current and former Trump aides said that the president’s maneuvering around Russia has achieved more than the administration has gotten credit for.
Andrew Peek, a former senior director for Europe and Eurasia on Trump’s National Security Council, argued that the president did win important concessions that were overlooked during the summit with Putin in Alaska earlier this year.
During those talks, Russia for the first time signaled a willingness to maintain some of the status quo territorial boundaries and backed off some of their June 2024 demands to take full control of four eastern Ukrainian provinces. “What they offered in Alaska was meaningful,” Peek said. “An agreement is going to need the fewest possible steps on both sides.”
The Russians typically hammer out a deliverable of some type ahead of leader-to-leader meetings, Peek said, and this time should be no different.
Some analysts see signs that the threat of providing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine is worrying Putin.
“Putin seems unsettled by Zelensky’s trip to Washington and talk of potential Tomahawk supplies to Ukraine,” said Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “The Trump–Zelensky meeting seems intended for Trump to focus on shifting dynamics of the war, possibly tilting in Ukraine’s favor, with the aim of building momentum toward peace.”
Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com and Annie Linskey at annie.linskey@wsj.com
2. Give Ukraine the Tomahawks, Mr. President
Give Ukraine the Tomahawks, Mr. President
Long-range cruise missiles could be a force for peace by altering Vladimir Putin’s capacity to carry on his grinding war.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/tomahawk-missiles-ukraine-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-31110f05
By The Editorial Board
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Oct. 17, 2025 5:37 pm ET
A Tomahawk cruise missile Agence France-Presse/Getty Image
President Trump demurred Friday on whether he’ll send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and he clearly hasn’t made up his mind. But the missile threat seems to have captured Vladimir Putin’s attention, and the U.S. interest in driving a durable peace in Ukraine far outweighs the risks of handing over the missiles.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks,” Mr. Trump said during a meeting at the White House with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine’s supporters had hoped for Mr. Trump’s approval to obtain the missiles, which have a range of more than 1,000 miles. But another call with Mr. Putin this week appears to have stayed that decision.
Mr. Trump’s reluctance seems to involve two concerns, and the first is escalation with a nuclear power. But Mr. Putin has been lobbing cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukraine for years, and there’s nothing escalatory about return fire. Tomahawks could be a force for peace by altering Mr. Putin’s capacity to carry on his grinding war.
The long-range missiles would let Ukraine do better than simply swatting down hundreds of incoming drones. Instead it could take out Russia’s Shahed drone factory. Mr. Putin has tried to use nuclear blackmail for three years to talk the U.S. out of donating this or that weapon. The empirical record is that it’s bluster.
The other concern is U.S. weapons inventories. “I have an obligation also, though, to make sure that we’re completely stocked up as a country,” Mr. Trump said, and that’s his duty as Commander in Chief. U.S. stocks aren’t as healthy as they should be after years of political neglect on defense budgets. Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institutenoted in our pages recently that the U.S. Navy fired more Tomahawk missiles in January 2024 than it bought the previous year.
The U.S. is overdue for a serious rebuild of its defenses, and we’re ready to support Mr. Trump when he decides to spend political capital to make it happen. But hoarding cruise missiles for another war that may or may not come invites more conflict.
While Ukraine is fighting Russian troops, Mr. Putin’s enabler and guarantor is China, whether via oil purchases or chips for military equipment. The U.S. won’t scare China with Tomahawk inventories if America looks afraid to defend its interests in Europe.
Mr. Trump has said repeatedly he wants to end the war, and no doubt he means it. But Mr. Putin so far hasn’t shown any willingness to stop shooting. The President mused on social media this summer that Ukraine needed to go on offense and not be stuck in the Joe Biden policy of playing defense. That’s what Tomahawks can help Ukraine do, and that’s what will bring a faster peace.
WSJ Opinion: Tomahawk Missiles for Ukraine? Trump Threatens, Putin Calls, and Zelensky Visits
Play video: WSJ Opinion: Tomahawk Missiles for Ukraine? Trump Threatens, Putin Calls, and Zelensky Visits
After Donald Trump suggests he might send Ukraine's defenders U.S. long-range Tomahawk missiles, he has a phone call with Vladimir Putin, one day before Volodymyr Zelensky is set to arrive in Washington. Is this an opportunity for Trump to take concrete action that matches his hardening rhetoric toward Putin's war, and how much could Tomahawks matter on the battlefield?
Appeared in the October 18, 2025, print edition as 'Give Ukraine the Tomahawks, Mr. President'.
3. Trump’s Mideast Playbook Is Prime for Ukraine by Garry Kasparov.
Trump’s Mideast Playbook Is Prime for Ukraine
Don’t drop the strongman shtick yet, writes Garry Kasparov.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-mideast-playbook-is-prime-for-ukraine-kasparov-518eccfb
Oct. 17, 2025 4:30 pm ET
The Middle East peace summit in the Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Oct. 13. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
As you note in your editorial “Trump’s Hostage Triumph in Jerusalem” (Oct. 14), the past week has been an outstanding if tragically belated success in the Middle East. President Trump might be a bully, but in the region where might makes right, he was the bully we needed. For once, I will say: Don’t drop the strongman shtick. Apply the same lesson of force to the bigger war raging: Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
So far Mr. Trump’s strategy—berating Ukraine while flattering Russia—has had the opposite effect. Vladimir Putin has been convinced that he can wait until his vicious nightly attacks on civilians break the country’s will. This was Hamas’s calculus during the Biden administration—holding out until Israel caved, or the international community forced it to. Mr. Trump busted that status quo and can here too. Much like Hamas, Mr. Putin needs the war to cling to power. The only way it ends is with Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat.
The U.S. can hasten that end by giving Ukraine the ability to bring the war deep inside Russia. Long-range strikes can hit key infrastructure, starving the Russian war machine of revenue and removing Mr. Putin’s ability to shield the Russian people from the consequences of war.
Ukrainian victory doesn’t mean troops marching on Moscow. It means crushing intruders and destroying the virus of Russian imperialism that has destabilized the world for a generation. This would be peacemaking on a world-changing scale—worthy of a prize.
Garry Kasparov
New York
Mr. Kasparov is a co-founder of the World Liberty Congress and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative.
Appeared in the October 18, 2025, print edition as 'Trump’s Mideast Playbook Is Prime for Ukraine'.
4. Trump Says He Would Rather End War Than Send Tomahawks to Ukraine
Trump Says He Would Rather End War Than Send Tomahawks to Ukraine
White House meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky comes a day after president discussed peace plans with Russia’s Vladimir Putin
https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-says-hed-rather-end-war-than-send-tomahawks-to-ukraine-04956387
By Robbie Gramer
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and Meridith McGraw
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Updated Oct. 17, 2025 7:45 pm ET
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The meeting between the two leaders Friday was the latest step in President Trump’s renewed effort to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Quick Summary
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President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, expressing hope Ukraine would not need U.S. Tomahawk missiles.View more
President Trump said he hoped Ukraine wouldn’t need the U.S. to provide it with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday.
“We’re going to be talking about Tomahawks, and would much rather have them not need Tomahawks,” said Trump. “Would much rather have the war be over, to be honest.”
“I think President Zelensky wants it done, and I think President Putin wants it done now,” he added.
Trump’s meeting with Zelensky represented the latest step in his renewed bid to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, following on the heels of his diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East to halt the fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.
Trump has in recent weeks openly mused about sending Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles as he soured on Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to negotiate an end to the conflict. Trump and Putin spoke at length by telephone on Thursday.
After Zelensky left the White House, Trump posted about the meeting on social media, but didn’t mention Tomahawks. “The meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!” he said. “They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide! No more shooting, no more Death, no more vast and unsustainable sums of money spent.”
Speaking later in Florida, Trump said that he has told Zelensky and Putin to stop the fighting and “go by the battle line wherever it is or else it gets too complicated. Stop right now at the battle line.”
At a press conference after his White House meeting, President Zelensky was asked about the missiles and what he had been told by U.S. officials. “We want [them] very much… we need them,” he said. “Nobody canceled this dialogue, this topic.”
Zelensky said he is open to bilateral or trilateral talks to end the war. “I’m realistic,” Zelensky said when asked if he believes he will get the weapons system.
Trump said he planned to meet Putin separately in Hungary in coming weeks in a bid to broker a peace deal that has long eluded him. Trump on the presidential campaign trail boasted he could end the Russia-Ukraine war on “day one” but his past efforts to do so have run aground.
Asked by a reporter if he thinks Putin is trying to buy time, Trump replied that he has been “played” all his life by “the best of them,” but said he thinks Putin wants to make a deal.
Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of more than 1,000 miles and could reach targets deep into Russia and far beyond the capacity of Western munitions that have been provided to Kyiv so far. Russian officials have warned that the delivery of Tomahawk missiles would mark a significant escalation.
The Trump administration has in recent months expanded intelligence sharing with Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia and imposed steep tariffs on one of Russia’s top trading partners, India. Earlier this month, the Trump administration also sanctioned Serbia’s largest oil and gas supplier, which is majority owned by Russian state energy giant Gazprom.
But Trump has yet to issue new economic sanctions on Russia’s energy or financial sectors despite repeated urgings from senior European and Ukrainian officials.
In Congress, U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing for action. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said Thursday he was ready to take up long-stalled legislation on Russia that would impose secondary sanctions on companies that support Russian energy production and steep tariffs on countries that import Russian energy.
“I think the time is right,” Thune said. “I’m hoping we can get it scheduled.”
Friday’s meeting marked the third time Zelensky has visited the White House since Trump took office. The two leaders greeted each other warmly, and Trump complimented Zelensky on his “beautiful” black suit jacket. Unlike previous visits this year, Zelensky stayed at Blair House, the residence across the street from the White House reserved for presidential guests.
“I’m confident that with your help we can stop this war,” Zelensky told Trump. “This is an important moment.”
It was a stark shift from Zelensky’s first meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, when the Ukrainian president was chastised in front of reporters and cameras for not showing the U.S. enough gratitude for its support.
First lady Melania Trump has also opened her own communication lines to Putin amid Trump’s efforts to broker peace. Last week, the first lady announced—unexpectedly—that she has been engaging in “back-channel” talks with Putin since her husband hand delivered a letter to the Russian leader calling on him to keep the plight of children affected by the war in mind. She said eight abducted children have been returned to their families as a result of her dialogue with Moscow, and more reunions are expected.
The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued arrest warrants for both Putin and another senior Russian official, Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s rights commissioner for her role in unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.
Zelensky and his allies seized on Trump’s recent success in brokering a diplomatic breakthrough in the Israel-Hamas war and said he could apply the same lessons to peace between Russia and Ukraine by ramping up pressure on Moscow.
“Putin is certainly no braver than Hamas or any other terrorist. The language of strength and justice will inevitably work against Russia as well. We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Zelensky said in a social-media post before the meeting with Trump.
Zelensky and his delegation also sought more U.S. support to address a looming energy crisis the country is facing as Russian forces step up attacks on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, which is crucial for keeping the country supplied with heat and electricity during winter. Zelensky said he met with American energy executives while in Washington.
U.S. and European officials said Putin hasn’t changed his calculus in the war despite staggering Russian military losses and is still pushing to take Ukrainian territory.
Trump last met Putin at a summit in Alaska in August but came away from the meeting empty-handed, leading some senior European officials to question what Trump could get out of meeting Putin in Hungary.
“Putin is likely hoping for a repeat of Anchorage in Budapest,” said Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council think tank. “Trump ultimately got a bad look and a massive dose of disrespect out of the summit in Alaska. After meeting with Trump, Putin continued his assaults on Ukrainian civilians and held firm to his maximalist goals in the war.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Trump’s acting national security adviser, and Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff are involved in the preparations for the Trump-Putin summit. The Kremlin said Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will speak in the coming days to begin planning for the meeting.
Write to Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Meridith McGraw at Meridith.McGraw@WSJ.com
5.Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan Hits an Early Snag in Gaza
An example of von Moltke - no plan survives contact.
Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan Hits an Early Snag in Gaza
A dispute no one expected has stalled a deal that still has a lot of difficult discussions ahead
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trumps-middle-east-peace-plan-hits-an-early-snag-in-gaza-5c6169d1
By Summer Said
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and Feliz Solomon
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Updated Oct. 18, 2025 4:25 am ET
Mourners at a funeral for Inbar Hayman, one of the hostages whose remains were returned to Israel. Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Quick Summary
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A truce between Israel and Hamas is faltering due to Hamas’s failure to return all deceased hostages from Gaza.View more
TEL AVIV—At the start of the week, President Trump declared the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” after securing a truce between Israel and Hamas that stopped the war in Gaza. Days later, the peace process is already stumbling.
The reason: a controversy over Hamas’s failure to return all of the bodies of dead hostages that remain in Gaza. Israel and the Arab mediators in the talks knew Hamas wasn’t able to locate all of them, but the militant group’s initial decision to return only four looked like foot-dragging to Israel and set off a highly political skirmish amid demands the deal be halted until the bodies were back.
While the holdups aren’t themselves expected to derail Trump’s plan, the dispute over a matter that wasn’t expected to trip things up underscores the fragility of a high-stakes deal forged using the president’s unconventional diplomatic strategy of declaring success on broad goals then leaving it to the parties to work out the details. Even thornier issues lie ahead, including the composition of the Arab-led force that is supposed to secure Gaza, how much of a commitment will be made to a pathway to a Palestinian state, and the disarmament of Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that controls the enclave.
Workers prepared to clear rubble in Gaza City this week. AFP/Getty Images
Before moving deeper into formal talks to resolve those issues, Israel and Hamas must first move past the initial phase of the deal they agreed to last week—which was supposed to be the easy part. Under that agreement, Hamas would hand over all 48 remaining hostages—living and dead—in exchange for Israel’s release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and a staged withdrawal of its troops.
Twenty living hostages returned to Israel on Monday, but Hamas has been slow to deliver on the remains of 28 others. Negotiators knew from the outset that recovering the bodies would be difficult amid the rubble of war-ravaged Gaza, but Israeli officials say Hamas is delaying on purpose to keep what little leverage it has left.
“We know as a matter of fact they can easily bring a significant number of dead hostages and give them back,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Thursday. “So what they are doing right now, it’s a fundamental breach of the agreement.”
Hamas reiterated its support for Trump’s deal Thursday and said finding the bodies will take some time.
Hamas members have monitored Red Cross vehicles collecting hostage remains. Ahmad Salem/Bloomberg News
“Hamas affirms its commitment to the agreement and its keenness to implement it, including delivering all remaining bodies,” it said, blaming Israel for hindering the task by holding up efforts to bring in recovery teams.
In its initial handover Monday, Hamas returned four bodies, fewer than Israel expected and deeply disappointing to the families awaiting their return. Another seven bodies have since been handed over, after Israel said it would curb the flow of humanitarian aid in response to what it viewed as Hamas’s violation of the pact.
One of the bodies was determined by forensic analysis not to be that of a hostage, bringing the total number of bodies returned to 10.
Hamas has told mediators that recovering the bodies from beneath the rubble of Gaza could take weeks and require special equipment that isn’t currently allowed to enter the war-torn enclave, such as bulldozers and excavators.
Trucks carry aid in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Mahmoud Issa/Reuters
Acknowledging the challenge, Israel and mediating countries formed an international task force including Egypt and Turkey to help recover the remains. Still, Israeli officials believe Hamas is holding out on bodies it can recover more quickly. Arab officials said Israel told mediators Wednesday that it believed Hamas knew the location of at least six others.
“Hamas seems to be stretching the terms around the return of the bodies, playing on the margins of what has been agreed,” said Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.
However, he said, “it’s unlikely right now that this will derail the cease-fire and push us back into war.”
If mediators can push past the dispute over the bodies, they have a host of even more complex issues to work out. Technical teams from Israel and Hamas began preliminary negotiations this week for the second phase of the plan, but it’s unclear when or where formal talks will be held.
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President Trump addressed the Israeli parliament on Monday, marking the deal to set Israeli hostages free in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Meanwhile, conditions on the ground in Gaza are changing fast, with Hamas already reasserting its authority in areas where Israeli troops pulled back. It has deployed thousands of armed men to patrol the streets, often dressed in civilian clothes. The group has launched a violent crackdown on rival militias, publicly executing several members of a powerful Palestinian family in Gaza City.
After initially telling reporters that Hamas was given “approval for a period of time” to secure Gaza until an international security force steps in, Trump’s tone shifted as the violence escalated.
“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump said Thursday on social media.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Feliz Solomon at feliz.solomon@wsj.com
Appeared in the October 18, 2025, print edition as 'Trump’s Mideast Plan Hits a Snag'.
6. Ukraine Braces for New Talks Without the Leverage of New Missiles
Ukraine Braces for New Talks Without the Leverage of New Missiles
President Trump backed off selling Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv, opting instead for talks with Russia. Still, Ukraine’s negotiating position has strengthened since the summer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/world/europe/ukraine-trump-talks.html
Listen to this article · 7:03 min Learn more
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine during his meeting with President Trump on Friday. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
By Constant Méheut
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
Oct. 18, 2025, 6:43 a.m. ET
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had meticulously laid the groundwork for his White House visit on Friday.
For days, he hammered one message — that Kyiv needed U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles to strike deep inside Russia. Then, he nudged President Trump toward selling the weapons in back-to-back calls last weekend. Finally, before his arrival, he sent top aides to Washington this week to meet with the missile’s manufacturer.
But when Mr. Zelensky landed in Washington, the landscape had changed. Mr. Trump had taken a phone call from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who appeared to steer him away from selling the weapons and toward reviving peace talks with an in-person meeting.
As Mr. Zelensky sat in front of Mr. Trump on Friday, the American leader’s shift was apparent. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks,” Mr. Trump told him. Mr. Putin, he added, “wants to make a deal.”
“It’s a déjà vu,” Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian Parliament, said in an interview after Friday’s meeting. “Mr. Trump fell again for Putin’s old trick.”
The sequence of events was all too familiar to Ukrainians. For months, they have watched efforts to rally the mercurial American president to their side being repeatedly undercut by Russia dangling the promise of more peace talks.
Ukrainians now worry they have lost the momentum they had built in recent weeks by playing on Mr. Trump’s frustration with Moscow’s refusal to settle the war. Instead of its preferred strategy — hitting Russia hard with long-range strikes to force genuine negotiations — Kyiv finds itself back to a cycle of talks it believes has already proved futile.
Image
Vice President JD Vance, Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio during their lunch at the White House.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
The situation leaves Ukraine in an uneasy position, forced to wait for the Trump-Putin meeting to take place before deciding its next move. If the talks yield nothing, Kyiv is expected to try again to steer Mr. Trump toward providing more weapons.
Still, Mr. Zelensky can take some satisfaction in Moscow’s proposal for new peace talks, which supports his longtime argument that Russia will only negotiate when faced with a military threat. “It shows the power of the Tomahawks,” said Harry Nedelcu, a senior director at Rasmussen Global, a research organization. “The weapons do not necessarily have to be deployed in order to be effective and to get Putin to react. So, clearly, the pressure is working.”
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Mr. Putin’s agreement to a new meeting with Mr. Trump may also offer Ukraine a temporary reprieve from Russian air attacks, because Moscow will want to show Washington that it is ready to lay down arms, Mr. Nedelcu noted. Kyiv needs the pause to repair energy facilities severely damaged by weeks of strikes. Emergency blackouts have been imposed across the country in recent days, and experts warn the situation could worsen as winter sets in.
In a sign that Kyiv and Moscow could still find common ground, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced on Saturday that both sides had agreed to a local cease-fire near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, which Russia controls. The cease-fire will allow repairs to damaged power lines that supply the facility and help cool its reactors. The plant had been without external power for four weeks, operating on backup diesel power.
The question is whether Mr. Putin will negotiate in earnest in his meeting with Mr. Trump, tentatively scheduled in Budapest in the coming weeks.
Mr. Merezhko, the Ukrainian lawmaker, said he doubted it, adding that Mr. Putin, if he actually went to Budapest, would try to “deceive Trump again.”
Asked on Friday whether he was concerned that the Russian leader was trying to buy himself more time, Mr. Trump responded, “I am.”
“But I’ve been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well,” he added.
Mr. Nedelcu, the analyst, said Mr. Trump would want to avoid a repeat of his previous meeting with Mr. Putin in Alaska in August, which produced no results after Russia repeated demands for extensive territorial concessions by Ukraine, a non-starter in Kyiv. “Trump wants Budapest to be a summit with substance,” Mr. Nedelcu said. “He wants the opposite of Alaska.”
Analysts say that if a new round of talks gets underway, Ukraine is in a relatively stronger position that in previous negotiation attempts.
Image
Ukrainian soldiers on the front line in the Kharkiv region in May. Russian progress has slowed in recent weeks, and counterattacks have allowed Ukraine to regain territory.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
While concerns ran high this spring and summer that Russia might capture crucial cities in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine has held firm and retained control of the cities. Russian progress has slowed in recent weeks, and Ukrainian counterattacks have regained some territory. Analysts expect the front to stabilize over the winter, with sparse vegetation limiting cover for troops and cold complicating logistics.
Russia’s limited advances on the battlefield have helped Ukrainian officials talk Mr. Trump out of his initial belief that Russia was bound to win the war and that Ukraine would be better off striking a deal, even if it meant ceding land. They are now less concerned that Mr. Trump might undercut Kyiv in future negotiations.
“I think we began to understand each other,” Mr. Zelensky said of Mr. Trump on Friday, noting that the American leader was regularly briefed on the battlefield situation.
A monthslong Ukrainian campaign targeting Russian oil infrastructure has also given Kyiv new leverage by putting Moscow under economic pressure. By last month, Ukraine had destroyed or damaged about 20 percent of Russia’s refining capacity, causing severe gasoline shortages in several regions and bringing the pain of war home to Russians.
While Mr. Trump’s decision earlier this year to end military and financial aid to Ukraine raised fears that Kyiv’s ability to fight would be severely curtailed, European funds have partly filled the gap and European capitals are now exploring ways to channel large sums to support the war effort on the long term.
European leaders are discussing a proposal to lend $160 billion to Ukraine based on frozen Russian sovereign assets in Europe, about three times Ukraine’s annual defense budget. The International Monetary Fund also appears likely to approve a new multibillion-dollar financial aid program for Ukraine, according to officials from the fund and Ukraine who met this week in Washington and requested anonymity to discuss closed-door meetings.
After the White House meeting, Mr. Zelensky told reporters that he backed Mr. Trump’s renewed push to stop the fighting, though he doubted Moscow shared the sentiment.
But he appeared frustrated at losing the leverage of the Tomahawks, saying he would no longer discuss the matter because the United States wanted to avoid “escalation” with Russia. He also said he hadn’t had a chance to push for additional economic sanctions, another tool Kyiv had hoped to use to pressure Moscow.
Asked if he was more optimistic or pessimistic about eventually getting the Tomahawks, Mr. Zelensky responded, “I’m realistic.”
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.
7. Israel Still Carrying Out Some Strikes During Gaza Cease-Fire
Israel Still Carrying Out Some Strikes During Gaza Cease-Fire
Military says it is aiming at militants, others who approach its troops, as Trump’s deal faces new challenges
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-still-carrying-out-some-strikes-during-gaza-cease-fire-a3027f2e
By Anat Peled
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Oct. 18, 2025 6:45 am ET
Locals gather to watch the search for the bodies of hostages in southern Gaza. haitham imad/epa/shutterstock/Shutterstock
Quick Summary
-
Israel conducted strikes in Gaza, targeting militants and vehicles, escalating tensions during the cease-fire.View more
Israel has carried out a number of strikes in the Gaza Strip during the current cease-fire, saying it was targeting militants who posed a threat or vehicles that came too close and didn’t stop when warned.
The incidents are adding to the stress on the cease-fire, which negotiators say was hammered out at a high level and left some details to be worked out on the fly.
Hamas’s failure to hand over the remaining bodies of hostages in Gaza was already creating pressure on the deal. Both sides expected it would be difficult to find all 28 bodies, but Hamas sparked an uproar in Israel when it initially returned only four. Under pressure, it has now returned a total of 10.
Israel’s military said it fired at militants who exited tunnel shafts and posed a threat to troops in two separate incidents Friday in the southern Gaza Strip. Israel struck a handful of militants in the city of Khan Younis it says exited a tunnel shaft about a mile into the Israeli side of the so-called yellow line that marks the Israeli area of control after it pulled back under the cease-fire, according to an Israeli official. In the second incident, the military said it returned fire after militants in Rafah, also inside the yellow line, fired at troops operating in the area, but there were no injuries, the official said.
In a third incident Friday, the Israeli military said it fired at what it called a suspicious vehicle after it crossed the yellow line and ignored warning shots. Hamas said the incident left two families, including several children, dead as they were hit by tank fire while trying to return home.
The incident echoed a similar shooting on Tuesday. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military would begin placing physical markers to identify the yellow line. Israel still controls 53% of the enclave pending further progress in negotiations.
Trucks carrying aid are lined up on their way to a border crossing to enter Gaza. Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters
While such incidents aren’t expected to collapse the deal brokered by President Trump, they underscore the deep lack of trust between the two sides and some of the many difficulties they are likely to encounter as they work toward a more complicated second stage of the agreement.
Hamas handed over another body overnight that was confirmed through forensic testing to be that of deceased hostage Eliyahu Margalit. Margalit was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and his body was taken to Gaza, according to the Israeli military.
Israeli officials have accused Hamas of delaying the handover of the remaining bodies of hostages in Gaza as required by the agreement.
In response, Israel has delayed the opening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and slowed the pace of humanitarian aid entering the enclave to pressure the group to release more bodies. The Rafah crossing has been closed since a January cease-fire deal, which collapsed in March. According to the agreement, Gazans are supposed to be able to enter and exit the enclave through the crossing in coordination with Egypt.
Israel wasn’t expecting Hamas to hand over all the bodies, as Israeli intelligence services believe the group doesn’t know where all are located, but has told mediators it believes Hamas knows the location of several more.
Hamas has said it would take more time to retrieve them from the rubble and that the task requires heavy machinery like bulldozers and excavators that aren’t currently permitted to enter the enclave.
Eliyahu Margalit was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and his body was taken to Gaza, according to the Israeli military. Reuters
Israel and mediating countries have formed an international task force to search for the bodies.
Israel and Hamas have begun technical talks over the second stage of the agreement, according to Arab officials, in which more complicated issues are to be discussed. They include the governance of postwar Gaza, disarming Hamas and security arrangements under an Arab-led force. These issues are so thorny that mediators put them aside and didn’t discuss them during negotiations for the first phase, according to Israeli and Arab officials.
Since Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas has launched a crackdown on rival militias controlled by prominent Palestinian families, engaging in firefights and conducting public executions that have spread fear, creating yet another challenge to the agreement.
“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not in the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump said on social media Thursday, after earlier saying he had given Hamas the go-ahead to restore order.
Write to Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com
8. U.S. Is Holding Survivors of Latest Strike Against Alleged Drug Boat
U.S. Is Holding Survivors of Latest Strike Against Alleged Drug Boat
Strike is the sixth against a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean amid buildup of U.S. military in the region
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/drug-boat-strike-survivors-held-1fbdc97d
By Shelby Holliday
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and Robbie Gramer
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Updated Oct. 17, 2025 7:30 pm ET
The USS Iwo Jima, pictured in 2018. jonathan nackstrand/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
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The U.S. is treating two survivors from an attack on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean. It was the sixth such strike in a campaign that has killed at least 27 people.View more
The U.S. is providing medical treatment to survivors from the latest attack on a vessel suspected of transporting illegal drugs in the Caribbean, according to two officials familiar with the matter.
The two survivors were rescued by the Coast Guard and taken to the USS Iwo Jima, which has a full medical staff. An unspecified number of others aboard the submersible were killed in the strike, the officials said.
President Trump said the attack targeted a “drug-carrying, loaded-up submarine” built to transport large quantities of narcotics. “This is not an innocent group of people,” he told reporters at the White House on Friday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the strike was part of a continuing operation against so-called narcoterrorists, and that more details would be released later. “Narcoterrorists, that’s what these are. These are terrorists, let’s be clear,” Rubio said.
The strike, conducted on Thursday, marks the sixth known U.S. attack against a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean, part of a campaign that has so far killed at least 27 people. It occurred on the same day as the early retirement of the commander overseeing U.S. forces in the region, Adm. Alvin Holsey, was announced.
The operation is the latest example of Trump’s expanding military campaign against cartels aimed at stemming the flow of drugs from Latin America to the U.S. It comes amid the largest U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean in decades, as tensions rise between Washington and Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Trump addressed those tensions on Friday, saying that Maduro had “offered everything” in response, including natural resources.
“You know why?” Trump added. “Because he doesn’t want to f–k around with the United States.”
Thursday’s strike was the first to result in known survivors. Reuters earlier reported on the two people rescued by the Coast Guard.
Trump said this week he authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to take covert action in Venezuela while also hinting he could expand the military campaign to conduct land strikes in Venezuela. Since August, the U.S. has deployed B-52 bomber aircraft, F-35B jet fighters, P-8 Poseidon spy planes, eight warships and a special-operations vessel to the region, among other weaponry.
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Trump said he is considering land strikes in Venezuela because the sea is ‘very well under control.’ Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/Press Pool
“We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea. So, you get to see that, but we’re going to stop them by land also,” he said Wednesday.
Most U.S.-bound cocaine is shipped through the Pacific Ocean to Mexican and Central American ports before being transported north to the U.S. In many cases, traffickers use semi-submersible vessels, which glide just beneath the water line, unable to dive, but capable of carrying five or more tons of cocaine while avoiding detection.
The military actions have raised concerns in Congress, where a group of lawmakers have introduced a war-powers resolution seeking to block the U.S. from engaging in armed conflict with Venezuela. Legal questions also remain over how the U.S. plans to treat the survivors of Thursday’s attack.
“The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote. We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war,” said Republican Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky, a co-sponsor of the resolution alongside Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine, of Virginia, and Adam Schiff, of California.
The Pentagon has said that its strikes are lawful. But they have been widely criticized by legal experts as impermissible. The presence of survivors is an additional complication, and unless they are quickly released, legal action over their fate would likely follow.
If the government has probable cause to charge them with a crime, it can bring them to a federal court for prosecution, said Laurie Blank, a professor at Emory Law School and former special counsel to the Pentagon’s general counsel. More likely, she said, is that the government could seek to justify their detention under the laws of war—the same rationale that the U.S. has asserted to hold prisoners without charge for years at Guantanamo Bay.
The Trump administration has described Maduro as an illegitimate leader and accused him of running a criminal cartel, a charge Maduro denies. The U.S. has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Maduro in response has authorized new military exercises in the country and said he was ready to declare a state of emergency over U.S. “aggression,” while accusing Trump of trying to foment regime change. Maduro has been widely accused of stealing the country’s 2024 presidential elections.
Write to Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com
Appeared in the October 18, 2025, print edition as 'Two Survivors Of U.S. Strike Are Detained'.
9. Where the U.S. Is Building Up Military Force in the Caribbean
Maps at the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/us/politics/trump-caribbean-venezuela-us-military-maps.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uU8.pcfy.rQmTE3tUp0yy&smid=url-share
Where the U.S. Is Building Up Military Force in the Caribbean
About 10,000 U.S. troops and dozens of military aircraft and ships are in the region as the Trump administration increases pressure on Venezuela.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/us/politics/trump-caribbean-venezuela-us-military-maps.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uU8.pcfy.rQmTE3tUp0yy&smid=url-share
u.s.
Small combat ship
U.S.S. Wichita
Six Reaper drones
Three surveillance aircraft
Seen Oct. 14
cuba
10 stealth fighters
Puerto
rico
Two replenishment ships
Seen Oct. 12
Iwo Jima
Amphibious
Ready Group
Three
guided-missile
destroyers
Caribbean Sea
Special forces ship
and guided-missile
cruiser
Seen Oct. 16
Venezuela
COLOMBIA
200 Miles
Source: New York Times analysis of satellite imagery, U.S. Naval Institute, LatAmMilMovements, Michael Bonet and M.T. Anderson. Note: Some U.S. ship locations are approximate.
Maps: Where the U.S. Is Building Up Military Force in the Caribbean - The New York Times
By Riley MellenEric SchmittChristoph KoettlSamuel Granados and Junho Lee
Oct. 17, 2025
Since late August, the U.S. military has carried out a steady and significant buildup of forces in the Caribbean, with about 10,000 troops at sea and on shore.
It is the largest deployment of U.S. forces in the region in decades and intended to bolster what the Trump administration says is a counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.
The United States has also carried out several lethal strikes on boats that the administration said were carrying narcotics. President Trump and other officials have posted videos of the strikes on social media.
Much of the military buildup is visible in commercial and scientific satellite images and in photographs shared on social media and by residents of the region. Some of the military flights can be seen on publicly available flight-tracking websites. The military has also posted details about U.S. activities in the Caribbean.
But officials have privately made clear that the main goal of the troop increase — which Mr. Trump said this week could also include covert C.I.A. operations — is to drive Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power.
About half of the U.S. force is aboard eight Navy warships, including about 2,200 Marines equipped with fighter jets. The other, slightly larger half of the force is mostly at air bases in Puerto Rico, and includes Marine Corps F-35 fighter jets, Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones and a variety of other surveillance planes and support personnel.
An increased display of military force
u.s.
Flight path of a
U.S. B-52 bomber
on Oct. 15
Atlantic Ocean
Airspace
monitored
by Venezuela
cuba
mexico
Caribbean Sea
Venezuela
colombia
400 Miles
Source: Flightradar24
In recent days, there has been a dramatic show of aerial threats in the region. On Wednesday, at least two B-52 bombers from Louisiana flew for several hours off the Venezuelan coast in what one senior U.S. official on Thursday called “a show of force.” While the bombers flew in international air space, they were in an air traffic control region managed by Venezuela. B-52s can carry dozens of precision-guided bombs.
An elite Army Special Operations unit has also been conducting helicopter flights over the ocean between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. Farther south, residents revealed that U.S. Navy surveillance planes were flying over southern Trinidad and Tobago, only a dozen miles from the Venezuelan coast, by posting videos of them on social media.
Video
A U.S. Navy P-8A surveillance plane flies over Trinidad.CreditCredit...
The New York Times also identified the M.V. Ocean Trader, a vessel that can serve as a Special Operations headquarters and is primarily used in stealth missions. The ship was captured in satellite imagery about 85 miles northeast of Venezuela.
Image
The M.V. Ocean Trader, a Special Operations ship, in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Sept. 27.Credit...Planet Labs
Image
The M.V. Ocean Trader was seen 85 miles northeast of Venezuela on Thursday.Credit...Copernicus
Two large Navy replenishment vessels, which deliver fuel and supplies to warships, were also seen in Puerto Rico on Sunday.
U.S. military officials said the air and naval operations were, at least for now, training missions — not rehearsals for possible military strikes in Venezuela. But this type of military presence in the region speaks to the increased pressure on Mr. Maduro and gives Mr. Trump options for what to do next.
How the U.S. is positioning itself
The U.S. military buildup has been most noticeable at sea, but the Pentagon has also quietly sent several thousand flight crews, maintenance specialists, security forces and other support personnel to bases in the region.
Puerto Rico is the main U.S. military base for its Caribbean operations. Rafael Hernández Airport in Aguadilla has been turned into a hub for armed drone flights. Satellite imagery shows that the United States built a new bunker last month to store ammunition for the drones.
Image
Newly constructed ammunitions storage at Rafael Hernández Airport in Puerto Rico this month.Credit...Airbus DS
Near the ammunition bunker, the imagery also shows a MQ-9 Reaper drone, which can be used for reconnaissance and striking targets.
Image
An MQ-9 Reaper drone was seen at Rafael Hernández Airport this month.Credit...Airbus DS
On the other side of the island, over a dozen military aircraft are based next to the town of Ceiba, including Marine Corps F-35 stealth fighter jets, helicopters and at least one Air Force AC-130 gunship. The aircraft are flying missions from an airport at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, which the military closed in 2004.
Image
Some of the F-35 fighter jets at the airport near Ceiba, Puerto Rico, on Friday.Credit...Planet Labs
Image
An apparent AC-130 gunship near the fighter jets in Puerto Rico on Friday.Credit...Planet Labs
And in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a small airport on St. Croix hosts three Air Force refueling aircraft and a new radar system, perched on a hill overlooking the Caribbean. The radar, seen in a photograph taken by a resident, is used by the Air Force to monitor the airspace and track aircraft.
Search radar system
Matt Wallace
Tim Wallace contributed reporting.
Riley Mellen is a reporter on The Times’s Visual Investigations team, which combines traditional reporting with advanced digital forensics.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
Christoph Koettl is a Times reporter on the Visual Investigations team.
10. Why the China Doves Are Wrong
Why the China Doves Are Wrong
American business leaders cozying up to Beijing refuse to see that the Communist Party wants us to fail.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/jensen-huang-is-wrong-about-china-f58c1a5b
By Shyam Sankar
Oct. 17, 2025 4:46 pm ET
A Communist Party meeting in Beijing, Sept. 28. Shen Hong/Zuma Press
China’s Commerce Ministry last week announced far-reaching export controls on lithium batteries, products that use Chinese rare-earth materials, and related technologies. The export controls, which President Trump characterized as “a rather sinister and hostile move,” are the latest reminder that the U.S. is funding its own destruction through economic dependence on a communist adversary.
Many American business elites persist in denying this reality. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a recent interview that while some Americans wear the label “China hawk” as a badge of honor, it is really “a badge of shame.” The future, Mr. Huang says, “doesn’t have to be all us or them. It could be us and them.”
A nice sentiment, but Chinese Communist Party leaders don’t believe it. They often speak soothingly of their country’s “peaceful rise.” But the party’s history and actions tell a different story. Influenced by the Chinese Civil War and the much-earlier Warring States period, the party believes that stability comes from control. This belief explains its ruthless efforts to consolidate power. The Communist Party believes China and the U.S. are locked in a “great struggle” for mastery. In this worldview, it isn’t enough for China to rise—the U.S. must fall.
China is already waging war against us in many ways. These include withholding rare-earth minerals, attempting to smuggle crop diseases into the U.S. to harm our food supply, pre-positioning electronic devices to cripple American telecommunications and emergency-response systems, and subsidizing the production and export of chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. Beijing’s goal is to weaken us while mobilizing for a future showdown we would lose. China’s military aims aren’t secret: The People’s Liberation Army does target practice on mock-ups of U.S. aircraft carriers.
Beijing’s economic strategy complements this goal. China spends roughly 5% of gross domestic product on industrial subsidies. This is conquest economics, meant to drive competitors out of business and make them dependent on China. Beijing’s standard playbook is to accept Western businesses until it has developed a credible challenger, then to exclude Western companies from the Chinese market and flood overseas markets with Chinese goods. Business leaders who play along with Beijing call to mind author Upton Sinclair’s observation that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
The U.S. is partially to blame for turning China into a juggernaut. American companies have invested vast sums over decades to build China’s industrial base. Financial journalist Patrick McGee estimates that Apple alone invested $275 billion over five years in China—an amount, in real terms, twice that of the Marshall Plan.
Even more galling: Chinese military contractors securitize weapons contracts in global capital markets, meaning that American pension funds and 401(k) investors have financed missiles aimed at U.S. ships.
The result of all this is that Beijing has grown into a champion of heavy industry and a formidable opponent in technology. China accounts for roughly 30% of global manufacturing by value, while America’s share has slid to around half of that. The Chinese shipbuilding industry is by far the world’s largest, while America’s has shrunk to irrelevancy.
This dramatic reversal of fortunes could have serious consequences. Mass manufacturing backstopped American primacy in the 20th century; the U.S. outbuilt and outinnovated its totalitarian foes. Now our enemy has the upper hand.
America must mobilize to meet this crisis, rebuild our industrial base and win the new cold war against communist China. Total decoupling isn’t necessary—the U.S. and Soviet Union had limited trade during the Cold War. Sovereignty, however, is necessary. We need to create alternatives so that our security and prosperity aren’t at the mercy of officials in Beijing. Some businesses and political leaders already have an appetite for change: JPMorgan Chase just committed $10 billion for investments in critical national-security projects. Australia, the Netherlands and other allies are taking steps to regain their sovereignty from the Communist Party’s predation. The U.S. must seize this moment of opportunity.
As it did with Operation Warp Speed during the pandemic, the federal government could coordinate with industry and allies to accelerate the production of critical goods that China has virtually monopolized, including rare-earth materials and pharmaceuticals. The U.S. government could remove regulatory roadblocks that slow energy production and industrial projects. It could underwrite the demand side, acting as a guaranteed buyer of critical products at sustainable prices, so that the private sector can invest and innovate without fear of being crushed by swings in global commodity prices or Chinese mercantilism. And the government could keep or even raise tariffs on Chinese goods, both to fund rebuilding at home and to offset the artificial price advantage of China’s heavily subsidized goods.
Washington could also restrict U.S. investment in China, including by limiting American companies from building factories on Chinese soil. As they did during the Cold War, U.S. companies will have to pick sides. They should build at home and in our closest allies’ countries.
None of this will be easy or cost-free. Beijing has leverage over America, from supplies of critical minerals and pharmaceuticals to its stockpile of U.S. Treasury bonds. But using that leverage is also costly for China, threatening massive economic losses and public discontent, which Beijing’s control-obsessed officials fear. Ultimately, the Chinese Communist Party has more to gain from continued economic integration with the U.S. than we do. We should prepare for a long and painful road, while recognizing that the problem will get worse if we delay, rewarding China with more investment and trade to use against us.
The first step to ending our dependence on China is admitting we have a problem. We can continue as useful idiots, decrying “China hawks” who point out that we’re funding our own demise. Or we can wake up to the reality that we’re already in an economic war in which every purchase and investment will help determine which system survives.
Mr. Sankar is chief technology officer of Palantir Technologies and author of “Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop WWIII,” forthcoming in March.
WSJ Opinion: A Fractured World
Play video: WSJ Opinion: A Fractured World
We may be seeing peace break out in the Middle East, but it’s still trade war elsewhere - especially with China. Donald Trump has threatened a 100% tariff on the rival superpower if Beijing goes through with its plan to impose tough restrictions on exports of the rare earth minerals critical to the U.S. economy. These could well be mere negotiating tactics but they’re a reminder of the wider friction that now dominates global economic relations. On this episode of Free Expression, Gerry Baker speaks with Neil Shearing, Group Chief Economist of Capital Economics and author of “The Fractured Age: How the Return of Geopolitics Will Splinter the Global Economy.” They discuss Shearing’s argument that the world is dividing into two giant economic blocs and what that might mean for stability and peace. They also talk about some unusual developments in global markets of late, especially a weakening dollar and a soaring gold price - the last of which Shearing believes is driven by Chinese official policy.
Appeared in the October 18, 2025, print edition as 'Jensen Huang Is Wrong About China'.
11. The U.S. Is Tiptoeing Away From Many of Trump’s Signature Tariffs
The U.S. Is Tiptoeing Away From Many of Trump’s Signature Tariffs
The administration is considering lifting duties on some products not produced in the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariffs-reciprocal-exemptions-e36f1216
By Gavin Bade
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and Jesse Newman
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Oct. 17, 2025 10:00 pm ET
President Trump at the White House. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Quick Summary
- President Trump is shifting his trade policy by exempting dozens of products from tariffs and offering more carve-outs for trade deals.View more
The Trump administration is quietly watering down some of the tariffs that underpin the president’s signature economic policy.
President Trump in recent weeks has exempted dozens of products from his so-called reciprocal tariffs and offered to carve out hundreds more goods from farm products to airplane parts when countries strike trade deals with the U.S.
The offer to exempt more products from tariffs reflects a growing sentiment among administration officials that the U.S. should lower levies on goods that it doesn’t domestically produce, say people familiar with administration planning. That notion “has been emerging over time” within the administration, said Everett Eissenstat, deputy director of the National Economic Council in Trump’s first term. “There is definitely that recognition.”
The move comes ahead of a Supreme Court hearing in early November on the reciprocal tariffs—a case that could force the administration to pay back many of the levies if it loses in court. The White House, Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The shift on the reciprocal tariffs reflects the Trump team’s desire to hedge its bets should the court strike down its broad levies, according to people familiar with the administration’s thinking. At the same time, Trump’s team is expanding its use of tariffs based on more established legal authority: Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Trump has already deployed that law to underpin tariffs on metals and automobiles, and this month announced a new tranche of duties aimed at heavy trucks, pharmaceuticals and furniture.
On Friday, Trump unveiled his latest action under Section 232, imposing 25% tariffs on trucks and truck parts, as well as 10% tariffs on buses, effective Nov. 1. As part of that action, Trump also expanded a tariff relief program for automakers, allowing them to apply for credits to partially offset the cost of tariffs on car and truck parts until 2030, instead of 2027.
Last month, Trump issued new exemptions for products from gold to LED lights and certain minerals, chemicals and metal products via a list called “Annex II” that includes many products that are or will be covered by the Section 232 levies.
He also previewed hundreds of potential exemptions to come in the future: The order includes a list of products that could receive zero tariffs under trade agreements with foreign nations that are being negotiated by Trump’s team. That list, dubbed “Annex III,” is aimed at “products that cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced in the United States,” the order states, such as “certain agricultural products; aircraft and aircraft parts; and non-patented articles for use in pharmaceutical applications.”
The September order also allows new authority to the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office to grant tariff exemptions themselves, without Trump himself issuing executive orders mandating the new carve-outs.
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Grocery prices are on the rise, and evidence suggests President Trump’s tariffs aren’t helping. WSJ visited one regional grocery chain to see how tariffs are affecting a handful of popular items. Photo Illustration: Josh Lisanby
The move will help streamline tariff policy, a White House official said, so the administration doesn’t need to issue an executive order for every group of exemptions as it implements over a dozen trade deals Trump has announced, or arrives at new pacts.
The administration has already struck trade pacts with several trading partners, including major economies like Japan and the European Union. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Senate Republicans at a lunch meeting this week that more deals are on the way, said Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.), who was in attendance.
For months, administration officials led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had insisted there would be “no exemptions, no exceptions” from Trump’s so-called reciprocal duties, originally announced in April. Lutnick has softened his stance publicly, saying in a late July television appearance that “if you grow something and we don’t grow it, that can come in for zero.”
Some protectionist Trump allies say the ramp-up in the so-called Section 232 tariffs will ultimately do more to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
“It doesn’t make sense to impose tariffs on products the U.S. doesn’t have the capability to produce,” said Nick Iacovella, executive vice president at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a protectionist group that advises the administration on trade. “Section 232 is the most effective tool.”
The Consumer Brands Association, which represents major food manufacturers, sent a letter to the Trump administration in March, urging officials to grant exemptions for goods like coffee, oats, cocoa, spices, tropical fruits and tin mill steel, used for food cans.
Many such goods are included in Annex III and potentially eligible for exemptions from countries that enter trade agreements with the U.S.
Candy giant Hershey said in May that it was “engaging with the U.S. government” to seek an exemption for cocoa. Duties on the commodity have added to problems for the Pennsylvania chocolatier, which also has been grappling with high prices for its core ingredient, and the company said it was using every lever at its disposal to get cocoa tariffs changed.
Some food companies have said they would raise prices to help offset rising costs from tariffs.
Others are trying to hold the line. Seafood company Chicken of the Sea, owned by Thai Union Group, said it is working to keep a lid on prices for its core canned-tuna products, despite tariffs on the fish. “It’s very price sensitive,” said Chicken of the Sea President Andy Mecs.
Certain tuna products are among the goods now potentially eligible for tariff exemptions. Mecs said that exceptions for foods like tuna are particularly important as the Trump administration pushes its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“There are a lot of healthy food products that are largely imported,” he said.
Write to Gavin Bade at gavin.bade@wsj.com and Jesse Newman at jesse.newman@wsj.com
12. Russia's War in Ukraine Is Starting to Show Cracks
Russia's War in Ukraine Is Starting to Show Cracks
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Georgia Gilholy · October 16, 2025
Key Points and Summary – Russia’s offensive in Ukraine is losing momentum, with new UK intelligence showing territorial gains in September were the slowest of the year.
-This slowdown comes at a staggering cost, as a leaked Russian document suggests over 281,000 casualties in 2025 alone.
Putin Speaking in 2025. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-With monthly losses now exceeding the 31,000 new recruits Russia can sign up, the Kremlin is bleeding manpower for minimal progress.
-A grim wounded-to-killed ratio of 1.3-to-1 further highlights poor battlefield medical care, painting a picture of a grinding war of attrition that Moscow is struggling to sustain.
Russian Land Gains Slump as Casualties Soar in Ukraine
Russia’s push across Ukraine looks to be losing momentum.
New intelligence from the United Kingdom shows Moscow’s forces are advancing more slowly than at any time this year, even as the Kremlin suffers enormous casualties for minimal territorial gains.
The British Ministry of Defense said Thursday that Russian troops captured about 250 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in September, compared with around 465 square kilometers in August.
The slowdown is “highly likely” the result of Moscow redeploying elite airborne divisions from Sumy to the heavily contested regions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
Still, this conflict remains as bitter as ever. In September, Russia captured the village of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
This week, Ukraine has called on its citizens to evacuate Kupiansk as Russia has gained several northern areas of the Oblast.
The Kremlin is also reportedly gearing up for an attempted encirclement of Pokrovsk, a vital Donbas logistics hub, along with the towns of Oleksiivka and Novohryhorivka.
Russia’s latest gains are slim and have generally come at a deadly cost to its own resources.
One leaked Russian military document suggests Russia’s invasion efforts have lost 281,550 men since the start of 2025.
Among this whopping figure, 86,744 were allegedly killed, 158,529 wounded, and 33,966 missing.
The National Security Journal is unable to verify these statistics independently, but Frontelligence Insight told Politico that they broadly line up with their own analysis.
The land gains publicly acknowledged by the Kremlin this year only amount to a measly 1% of Ukraine’s total territory.
Russia currently controls approximately 19 percent of Ukraine’s total territory, but this figure has remained relatively stable since 2022.
The numbers highlight how Moscow is bleeding manpower for minimal progress. The Institute for the Study of War claims that Russia is still signing up some 31,000 recruits monthly, but is shedding almost 35,000.
Desperately aware of this gap, the Kremlin is advertising large signing bonuses of up to 2.5 million rubles—the equivalent of around 31,054 US dollars. Russia is also increasingly turning to African and Middle Eastern recruits.
Image Credit: Office the the President, Ukraine.
Many are enticed with promises of non-combat roles, only to be sent directly into the fighting.
Russia’s casualty ratio also tells a bleak story. In most modern wars, roughly three soldiers are wounded for every one killed. For Russia, that ratio is closer to 1.3 to 1, suggesting chaotic evacuation procedures and a lack of battlefield medical care.
While Moscow claims its “special military operation” is under control, its limited advances have come at a considerable cost.
As the conflict on the ground grinds on, President Donald Trump continues to mull over proposals to fulfill Ukraine’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles that could strike deep into the heart of Russian territory.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, argues that such weapons could force Vladimir Putin back to the negotiating table, while others, including Putin himself, warn that they would further inflame tensions.
About the Author: Georgia Gilholy
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education. You can follow her on X: @llggeorgia.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Georgia Gilholy · October 16, 2025
13. The Real Reason the U.S. Army's Recruiting Numbers Are Surging
The Real Reason the U.S. Army's Recruiting Numbers Are Surging
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Robert Farley · October 17, 2025
How is the U.S. Army Fixing Its Recruiting crisis?
In the years following the drawdown of the Wars on Terror, the US military found itself with a problem.
British Royal Air Force Regiment troop cycles M500 Shotgun at the Winston P. Wilson (WPW) and 27th Armed Forces Skill at Arms Meet (AFSAM) at Robinson Maneuver Training Center, Ark, 2018. The annual events, hosted by the National Guard Marksmanship Training Center (NGMTC), offer Servicemembers from the National Guard and international community an opportunity to test marksmanship skills in a battle-focused environment.
Recruiting and retention lagged behind the Army’s goals, hindering its ability to maintain a cohesive force.
While disinterest on the part of young people was a problem, a bigger issue was that the physical, legal, and intellectual standards used for a recruiting baseline excluded some three-quarters of eligible young Americans.
This left the Department of Defense with a quandary: adjust standards, or change operations to match the reduced flow of recruits.
This was not the first time the military had faced such a problem, but previous instances had occurred under vastly different political and economic circumstances.
While the jury remains out on an overall evaluation of the program, at this point, it appears to be a significant success compared to earlier projects, including Robert McNamara’s Vietnam-era “Project 100000.”
The New U.S. Army Recruiting
The Army designed the Future Soldier Preparatory Course (FSPC) to close two gaps. The first is between the number of soldiers the Army wants and the number it has been able to recruit in recent years.
The second gap was between the aspirations of men and women who wanted to join the Army and the basic physical, intellectual, and legal standards the Army requires of new recruits.
Based in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the FSPC puts would-be recruits through what amounts to preparatory basic training, designed to generate physical fitness (usually measured in terms of weight, waistline, and basic exercise proficiencies) and improve test scores.
The pilot FSPC (launched in 2022) project achieved enormous success in improving recruit performance before basic training, as measured by both physical and intellectual metrics.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Alexander Trott, a paratrooper with 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, fires his MK22 Advanced Sniper Rifle during sniper training at the 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, June 7, 2024. A 1-91 CAV sniper team will participate at the International Danish Sniper Competition later this month. The 173rd Airborne Brigade is the U.S. Army’s Contingency Response Force in Europe, providing rapidly deployable forces to the United States European, African, and Central Command areas of responsibility. Forward deployed across Italy and Germany, the brigade routinely trains alongside NATO allies and partners to build partnerships and strengthen the alliance. (U.S. Army photo by Markus Rauchenberger)
Two expansions of the program since that point have seen similar success, resulting in an observable recruiting surge that President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth have taken credit for. The program has been so successful that the Navy has adopted similar measures to manage its own recruiting shortfalls.
McNamara’s 100000
Because the Future Soldier Preparatory Course involves a creative approach to resolving the tension between high standards and the need to recruit more soldiers, some have compared it to Project 100000, a Vietnam-era program designed to expand Army recruitment to populations that previously had been excluded because of low academic or physical evaluations (in practice, opening up recruiting for candidates who scored in the 10th to 30th percentile on armed forces recruting tests).
Project 100000 was designed in a different time to solve a problem that was in some ways the same but in other ways much different.
The Project resulted from two impulses; the first a need to close the gap in recruitment created by US involvement in the Vietnam War, and second a belief in the power of technology to close gaps in testing and intellectual performance.
Essentially, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara believed that he could address the Vietnam manpower problem while simultaneously resolving the issue of low-scoring recruits by placing them in front of educational videotapes.
Project 100000 was also justified in terms of supporting Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty by giving poor Americans the opportunity to take advantage of military service to improve socio-economic outcomes for they and their families.
By nearly every account, Project 100000 failed. Although exact statistics are hard to come by, reports from Vietnam suggested that Project recruits suffered higher casualties and performed at lower levels of effectiveness than “normal” soldiers.
Testing was often fraudulent, with test centers coaching illiterate candidates through their paces. Post-war outcomes were also negative, with veterans of Project 100000 suffering from worse socio-economic outcomes than non-veterans from comparable groups.
In the end, Project 100000 has served to do little more than replace high-scoring potential recruits (many of whom enjoyed college deferments) with low-performing recruits, to the detriment of the latter and of the fighting capacity of the US armed forces.
The Differences
While the need that generated both programs and some of the logic that sustains them is the same, the differences are nevertheless profound.
Most of the problems addressed by the Future Soldier Preparatory Course involve physical fitness, and regularized intellectual testing since the 1960s has become much better at distinguishing between low scores and significant intellectual disability.
McNamara’s folly also came at a much earlier stage in the science of pedagogy and was launched without a complete understanding of the nature of learning.
We now have confidence that the technological tools McNamara wanted to use for academic improvement have little to no impact, and that real improvement requires a social infrastructure geared towards remedial education.
An M1A2 Abrams tank from 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor Regiment, “Dragons,” 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas, pulls during Combined Resolve X at the Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, May 1, 2018. Exercise Combined Resolve X is a U.S. Army Europe exercise series held twice a year in southeastern Germany. The goal of Combined Resolve is to prepare forces in Europe to work together to promote stability and security in the region. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Andrew McNeil / 22nd Mobile Public Affairs)
To be sure, the brief period covered by the FSPC is not enough to remedy decades of educational shortfalls, but a better understanding of the problem (often linguistic) brings the ends and the means closer together.
Finally, while graduates of the Future Soldier course usually find themselves in armor, infantry or artillery (traditionally the lowest scoring specialties), there is little evidence thus far that their performance is meaningfully lower than that of other recruits. Project 100000 hurt the combat capacity of American units in Vietnam, and hurt the individuals who made up those units; there is no evidence thus far that FSPC will have the same effect.
The U.S. Army: How Do We Recruit in 2025?
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has argued that an end to “wokeness” and a wave of patriotism spurred by the election of President Trump to a second term is driving recruiting success in the US armed forces.
It’s too early to conclude that the Secretary of Defense is wrong about these claims; President Trump’s election surely matters for many of the demographics (in particular those of the exurban South) that have historically filled out the armed forces.
However, the FSPC program has had a significant impact, one that is readily apparent in the numbers.
About the Author: Dr. Robert Farley
Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Robert Farley · October 17, 2025
14. The First 48 Hours of a War With China 'Could Be Ugly'
The First 48 Hours of a War With China 'Could Be Ugly'
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-first-48-hours-of-a-war-with-china-could-be-ugly/
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Andrew Latham · October 17, 2025
Key Points and Summary – In a war with China, the U.S. must prepare to absorb a massive opening punch of over a thousand missiles and drones aimed at paralyzing its forces.
-The key to victory is not preventing this first strike but building a resilient force that can “fight hurt.”
F-15EX Eagle II’s from the 40th Flight Test Squadron, 96th Test Wing, and the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron, 53rd Wing, both out of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, fly in formation during aerial refueling operations with a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 370th Flight Test Squadron out of Edwards Air Force Base, California, May 14. The Eagle II’s participated in the Northern Edge 21 exercise in Alaska earlier in May. (Air Force photo by Ethan Wagner)
-This requires a radical shift to strategies like Agile Combat Employment, which disperses aircraft across many smaller bases, and developing resilient command networks.
-It also demands “magazine depth”—surging production of key munitions and operationalizing at-sea reloading—and fully integrating allied firepower.
-The goal is to survive the opening hours and win the longer campaign.
‘Disperse or Die’: The Air Force’s Survival Plan for a War With China
America’s next war will probably start with a number, not a speech.
Imagine a first day with perhaps a thousand inbound missiles and drones: craters on airbases, fuel farms in flames, runways closed, command posts jammed, warships bracketed, aircraft trapped on the ground.
That’s the tempo Beijing wants to impose, compressing the timeline until decision-making stumbles and recovery falters.
The United States can’t wish that away.
The test is brutally simple: can the US military absorb the first punch, fight through the second, and make sure there’s still a joint force on day three that can find, fix, and finish at scale?
Airpower Under Fire: Disperse or Die
A decline in forward airpower would mark the worst day. Precision ballistic and cruise missiles targeting a handful of familiar airfields would try to turn sortie generation into a math problem America can’t solve quickly enough.
An F-15E Strike Eagle stands static on the flightline before morning takeoffs at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, Jan. 5, 2021. The 48th Fighter Wing conducts daily flying operations in order to ensure the Liberty Wing can deliver unique air combat capabilities when called upon by its NATO allies. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Madeline Herzog)
Massed salvos, not one-off shots, create persistent denial, and even rapid runway repair can be outrun by repeated strikes that cycle faster than recovery crews can work.
This is why the Air Force’s migration toward Agile Combat Employment—spreading aircraft across many austere locations, moving often, refueling hot, and loading munitions under pressure—isn’t a buzzword but a survival scheme.
This year’s theater-wide REFORPAC 2025 exercise in the Pacific was built to practice exactly that: shifting from a few exquisite hubs to dozens of good-enough spokes that keep generating combat power when the big bases go dark.
Dispersal alone won’t save the force if it can’t command itself under fire. China’s opening play will not only target runways and fuel; it will pry at the synapses of command and control—satellites, data links, radar nodes, and the electromagnetic seams where kill chains are stitched together.
The shift to more resilient C2—mesh networks, line-of-sight relays, and mission command that pushes initiative down—is overdue but finally moving from slides to sorties. REFORPAC’s dispersal vignettes were paired with logistics, communications, and air-defense stressors designed to make units operate at the edge of the network. That is what “taking losses and getting back into the fight” actually looks like: degraded operations, not paralysis; a fractured picture, not blindness.
China J-20 Fighter Yellow. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
China’s theory of victory is no mystery. The Rocket Force exists to hold U.S. and allied militaries at risk across a wide arc, from fixed bases to moving ships. A large inventory of conventional systems gives Beijing many ways to stress U.S. posture and tempo on day one and day two.
None of this guarantees a bolt-from-the-blue win; it guarantees a miserable, highly kinetic opening in which the side that regenerates faster and targets smarter gains the initiative. That is precisely why the United States is hardening Guam, expanding access in the Philippines, and changing the geometry of presence in Japan and across the first and second island chains. Distributed posture complicates Chinese calculus because saturation attacks must now be larger, more sustained, and more accurate to achieve the same suppression.
Salvo Arithmetic at Sea
The sea fight will be contested just as fiercely. Salvo arithmetic matters: every Vertical Launch System cell fired is one you must reload.
The Navy’s push to reload at sea—still experimental but no longer hypothetical—matters because it reframes the question from “How many shots can you take?” to “How quickly can you rearm under threat?” In parallel, production ramps for key interceptors and long-range strikes—SM-6, LRASM, JASSM, and others—are rising from a low base. Magazine depth is strategy by other means; you either have the weapons to sustain weeks of combat at pace or you don’t.
America was late to this reality but is no longer sleepwalking.
Landward, the Marine Corps’ new littoral regiments are the quiet disruptors. Small, mobile, missile-armed, and paired with new sensing and deception kits, they exist to make narrow seas and straits hazardous to a blue-water fleet that expected sanctuary under its own umbrella.
Deployed with allies along key maritime chokepoints, they complicate Chinese targeting and create a web of cross-domain fires that forces the People’s Liberation Army Navy to respect coastal arcs it once discounted. This is not a silver bullet; it is scaffolding for joint kill chains when traditional formations are suppressed.
Long-range strike is the insurance policy when forward posture is degraded. The B-21 test fleet expanding at Edwards AFB underscores that survivable bombers—teamed with standoff munitions and supported by a revitalized tanker force—will carry a disproportionate share of the opening counterpunch.
A B-21 Raider test aircraft lands at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., during ongoing developmental flight testing, Sept. 11, 2025. The B-21 will be the backbone of the bomber fleet; it will incrementally replace the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers. (U.S Air Force photo by Todd Schannuth)
A second B-21 Raider, the nation’s sixth-generation stealth bomber, joins flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Sept. 11, 2025. The program is a cornerstone of the Department of the Air Force’s nuclear modernization strategy, designed to deliver both conventional and nuclear payloads. (Courtesy photo)
Their value is not only in stealth; it is in campaign endurance—launching from depth, bending routes around degraded air defenses, and holding at risk the command nodes, air-defense radars and logistics depots that sustain Chinese tempo. Base defense and recovery, however, must keep pace, especially on Guam, where timelines, integration and sustainment remain the true bottlenecks even as construction begins.
Allied Firepower as a Force Multiplier
Allied capacity is the other lever that changes the first-week math.
Japan’s rapid pivot to long-range strike—Tomahawks now, upgraded domestic systems next—signals a move from a purely defensive posture to one that can trade salvos and contribute to theater-wide targeting.
The quantity matters because it multiplies launch points; the politics matter because it normalizes allied participation in deep-strike campaigns.
The United States should nurture this shift with integrated planning, shared magazines, and training that treats allied shooters as part of the same fire network from day one. The more launchers and launch sites the alliance fields, the less plausible any decisive opening becomes.
None of this erases risk. The first forty-eight hours could be ugly: supply chains strained, command nodes degraded, some ships damaged, some squadrons displaced, and some runways counted in craters rather than feet.
The goal is not to make that go away; it is to prevent those losses from cascading into strategic defeat. That is why resilience beats perfection. A force able to fight hurt—because it planned to be hit, trained under friction, and stocked the magazines to keep shooting—denies an adversary the quick win and drags the contest into a longer campaign on terms more favorable to the United States and its allies.
H-6 Bomber from China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
So would China win with a massive bolt from the blue? Only if the United States clings to a peacetime way of war.
The emerging posture—dispersed, networked, allied, and magazine-rich—points in the right direction, but the to-do list is non-negotiable: surge munitions harder and earlier, operationalize at-sea reloads, thicken base defenses, deepen fuel and parts stocks, and cement command constructs that assume attrition and still function.
A battle decided in a day rewards the side that breaks things; a campaign decided over weeks rewards the side that fixes them faster.
Plan to lose the opening hours—and then win the rest.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Andrew Latham · October 17, 2025
15. Cronyism and Failed Promotions: Xi’s PLA Purge
Excerpt:
The latest announcement signals the end of one set of investigations. The probes into senior generals that began with the CMC Equipment Development Department in 2023 appear to have reached a temporary pause following the disciplinary overhaul of political and personnel work—and the punishment of CMC vice chairman He Weidong, who oversaw these areas. But similar investigations and purges will likely continue in the foreseeable future. The key question is this: if Xi Jinping can no longer trust the confidants who came up with him in the old 31st Group Army in Fujian Province, who can he still trust?
Cronyism and Failed Promotions: Xi’s PLA Purge
October 17, 2025 06:17 PM Age: 16 hours
https://jamestown.org/program/cronyism-and-failed-promotions-xis-pla-purge/
jamestown.org · K. Tristan Tang · October 17, 2025
Executive Summary:
- The Ministry of National Defense announced on October 17 that nine generals—including Central Military Commission Vice Chairman He Weidong and Political Work Department Director Miao Hua—had been expelled from the Party and the military.
- The purge centers on personnel mismanagement and alleged job-related crimes, highlighting systemic corruption within the PLA’s political work and promotion system.
- Many of the officers shared prior service ties in the Eastern Theater Command area and the former 31st Group Army, forming an improper network around He and Miao.
- The campaign marks Xi Jinping’s most visible effort yet to tighten control over the PLA’s personnel system, raising the question of whom Xi can still trust within his own military ranks.
On October 17, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of National Defense announced the results of investigations into nine generals. All were expelled from both the Communist Party and the military. The list includes vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) He Weidong (何卫东), director of the CMC Political Work Department Miao Hua (苗华), executive deputy director of the CMC Political Work Department He Hongjun (何宏军), executive deputy director of the CMC Joint Operations Command Center Wang Xiubin (王秀斌), commander of the Eastern Theater Command Lin Xiangyang (林向阳), former political commissar of the Army Qin Shutong (秦树桐), former political commissar of the Navy Yuan Huazhi (袁华智), former commander of the Rocket Force Wang Houbin (王厚斌), and former commander of the People’s Armed Police Wang Chunning (王春宁) (Xinhua, October 17).
This is not the first time that the authorities have announced investigations or disciplinary actions against these generals. For example, in June this year, the standing committee of the National People’s Congress announced the removal of Miao Hua from his position as a member of the CMC (Xinhua, June 27). But the connection between the purges has never previously been explained. Today’s announcement in effect confirms that He Weidong, Miao Hua, and others faced purges due to alleged factionalism and misconduct in personnel appointments.
Mismanagement of Personnel within the Political Work System
The statement from the Ministry of National Defense suggests that the nine generals were likely purged over personnel management and promotion issues. While other parts of the statement consistently mention all nine, He Weidong, Miao Hua, and He Hongjun appear to be the key figures. They are singeld out for “strict disciplinary action” (严肃查处).
The most specific charge listed in the statement is “serious job-related crimes” (涉嫌严重职务犯罪), indicating that this is likely the principal reason for the purge. Other parts of the statement refer to more general offenses such as seriously violating Party discipline, and those involving particularly large sums, that are extremely serious in nature, and that have caused extremely adverse effects.
The common link between Miao Hua, He Weidong, and He Hongjun, and the charge of “serious job-related crimes,” lies in the PLA’s personnel management system. He Weidong served as the CMC vice chairman overseeing personnel affairs, while Miao Hua and He Hongjun were the top two officials in the CMC Political Work Department, which manages personnel matters. In other words, problems in the evaluation and promotion of general officers appear to be the central issue (China Brief, April 11).
Improper Personal Network Led by Miao Hua and He Weidong
The removal of the nine generals is the most prominent case to date linked to the PLA’s broader personnel management problems. The nine appear to have formed an improper network centered around Miao Hua and He Weidong. Among them, Miao Hua advanced the fastest. He was promoted to general in 2015 and took over the CMC Political Work Department around September 2017, where he oversaw personnel management and promotions across the entire military until his suspension in November 2024. Except for He Weidong and Wang Chunning, who were promoted to lieutenant general in July 2017, the remaining six rose from the rank of major general to general during the period when Miao Hua oversaw personnel affairs. Table 1 below shows the promotion histories of the nine generals.
Table 1: Promotion Histories of the Nine Generals
(Source: Compiled by the author)
Among the nine generals, seven previously served in the Eastern Theater Command area. Some, such as He Weidong, Miao Hua, and Lin Xiangyang, spent extended periods in the former 31st Group Army, now reorganized as the 73rd Group Army. This indicates a degree of geographic and operational overlap that likely fostered personal connections during training and exercises. He Weidong was promoted to general in 2019 and served as commander of the Eastern Theater Command until his reassignment in 2022. During that period, both Wang Xiubin and Lin Xiangyang served as deputy commanders of the Eastern Theater Command before being reassigned in 2021 to command the southern and central theater commands, respectively.
The two whose public records show no prior service in the Eastern Theater Command, Yuan Huazhi and He Hongjun, both had direct subordinate relationships with Miao Hua. During Miao’s tenure as political commissar of the Navy in 2014–2017, when he oversaw naval personnel affairs, Yuan served directly under him, holding positions as political commissar of the Naval Equipment Research Institute and later of the Marine Corps. After Miao became director of the CMC Political Work Department in 2017, He Hongjun continued to serve as one of his deputies and was later promoted in 2024 to executive deputy director along with his promotion to general.
Conclusion
The purge of these nine generals represents one of the most visible examples of CMC Chairman Xi Jinping’s ongoing effort to overhaul and tighten control over the PLA’s personnel management system. Xi aims to address the military’s long-standing problems in promotion and personnel oversight. This explains why political work and discipline within the PLA this year have placed extraordinary emphasis on personnel management (China Brief, May 23; October 17). Accordingly, the official statement released on October 17 explicitly noted that the purge of the nine generals once again demonstrates the firm resolve of both the Party Central Committee and the CMC to carry the anti-corruption struggle through to the end, and emphasized that corruption will find no shelter within its ranks.
The latest announcement signals the end of one set of investigations. The probes into senior generals that began with the CMC Equipment Development Department in 2023 appear to have reached a temporary pause following the disciplinary overhaul of political and personnel work—and the punishment of CMC vice chairman He Weidong, who oversaw these areas. But similar investigations and purges will likely continue in the foreseeable future. The key question is this: if Xi Jinping can no longer trust the confidants who came up with him in the old 31st Group Army in Fujian Province, who can he still trust?
jamestown.org · K. Tristan Tang · October 17, 2025
16. Military drones will upend the world: The age of hyper-power is here
A view from the UK.
Excerpts:
At home and abroad, the struggle for power will be won by those who control the robots. Nations must consider their choices. Britain is prepared neither for the drone age, nor the changing nature of power. Lacking a strong industrial base and sufficient local tech champions, we buy our weapons and our software from others, mainly in the United States. This creates vulnerability, for digitisation and AI impose new layers of influence and control, layers that may one day circumscribe the independence and freedom of British policymakers. Sellers of hardware can refuse to provide new models; sellers of software can refuse to provide new licenses and upgrades. Indeed, the integration of digital and physical systems means software providers could use kill switches to render hardware platforms inoperable from afar. One day, our weapons may be turned against us: for there are no permanent friends in international affairs, only interests. It is in Britain’s interest that it acquire functional sovereignty over its military strength.
If we wish to remain an independent country, British leaders, British companies, and British citizens must understand and control the autonomous systems that will wage its wars and grow its economy. A robust tech sector and technically competent population helped Ukraine maintain her freedom, and it is this that Britain must build. If we develop a population that can understand and control the technologies around them, we can resist disempowerment. For national defence, and to build the tech giants of tomorrow, Britain must embrace its geeks. History can guide us; ARM’s success was born in the BBC Micro, a computer distributed to schools to accompany a BBC computer literacy program. The BBC should now launch a drone literacy program, focused on how physical robots will change our world, and selecting British consumer drone companies to be marketed alongside it. Hacker houses, tech foundries, and maker spaces should be geared to help people understand and innovate with robots. In the era of AI, the best defence to liberty will lie not in bearing arms, but in maintaining the power to shape them. France birthed the levée en masse; Britain must prepare for the levée en drone.
Military drones will upend the world
The age of hyper-power is here
James Kingston
17 Oct 9 mins
unherd.com · James Kingston
Political power arises from the barrel of a gun. Such, at any rate, is Mao Zedong’s most famous dictum. Accomplished poet, keen historian, and a master strategist, he was in this instance only half-right — for political power arises not only from the barrel of the gun, but from the capacity to make that gun, and to motivate those who would hold it. As a Marxist, he would have appreciated an additional observation: a gun is not only a gun. It is also a tool, a lens through which to observe the economy, society, and political implications of a moment in history. For those who care to look, today’s weapons are pointing to the future.
On the killing fields of Ukraine, an estimated 70% of casualties are now caused by drones. Tactics, techniques, and equipment are evolving at breakneck speed. At high and low altitude, cameras mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide constant surveillance, channelling data to human operators and to other drones. In battle, and in the slow attritional grind of the stable front lines, UAVs are used to hunt and bomb the enemy — pursuing individual soldiers and recording footage of their final moments. Close-range combat is disappearing, and artillery is on the way out, too.
Laden with explosives, kamikaze drones are increasingly used in place of long-distance barrages. Drones, meanwhile, are begetting drones; “mothership” UAVs can now be used to launch drone “swarms”. Jet-powered drones have been developed to bomb cities and airbases at long range. Used at sea, drones have devastated the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet; used on land, fighting drones have attacked villages, and act in logistical complement to ground forces. In this highly digital war, the majority of combat is carried out neither through the lens of a gunsight, nor the point of a bayonet, but instead via the videogame-like visual streams of a drone operator’s first-person-view goggles
The greatest innovation of the Russo-Ukrainian war may yet be a battlefield devoid of warriors. Drone power has transformed army tactics, hampering troop concentrations and creating largely stable front lines. Yet drones and drone operators are also vulnerable. UAVs are susceptible to jamming and the vagaries of changing weather; close to the front, their pilots are open to attack. Faced with this reality, militaries are now investing in autonomous weapons — drones able to select, pursue, and attack targets independent of human control.
The drone era is dawning, and with it has come a great boom in defence spending. As the Defence Secretary, John Healey, recently disclosed, Britain is to mass-produce the drones that will defend Nato’s eastern flank from the incursion of Russian jets: a “drone wall”. And these drones are not just drones. Each of them is an industrial process, a social form, and an economic system condensed into a single item. Each is an artefact of global supply chains, multiple production facilities, cheap robotics, and abundant microchips. Each straddles the physical and digital realm; think of the cameras required to scan the battlefields, the satellites and tooling to transmit the video feeds, the software required to interpret them — and the people, companies, and processes that made each of these in turn. When made for battle, drones represent a fusion of military priorities with dual-use consumer technologies in gaming, AI, and robotics. Through drones, we can examine the digitised, networked, and increasingly automated nature of war. Through drones, we can perhaps see the rise of a new kind of power, and a new kind of politics. Ever since the French Revolution, the force-potential of an organised citizenry has been the central fact of political life, but this age is now passing. It is passing where Napoleon and his generals first birthed it — the field of war.
“Ever since the French Revolution, the force-potential of an organised citizenry has been the central fact of political life, but this age is now passing.”
If anything, Healey is late. Global growth rates in defence spending more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, and in Europe the sector grew by 11.7% in 2024. Trump’s Big Beautiful Act will boost defence spending by $150 billion; billions of this are dedicated to drones and AI. As technology changes, a new generation of defence giants is forming. Helsing, the German provider of autonomous software systems, recently received €600 million in investment, valuing the firm at €12 billion — a mere four years after it was founded. It has just unveiled the “Europa” fighting drone. Another German defence giant, Rheinmetall, is now partnering with US-based weapons manufacturer Anduril to develop and mass-produce autonomous weapons systems.
The winds of change are blowing, and titans of consumer technology are responding. Daniel Ek, the Swedish founder of Spotify, first made his money through providing people with music recommendations; as chairman of Helsing he has now become a key figure in European defence. OpenAI boasts that its mission is to “ensure artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity”; as of June, that noble aspiration will encompass supplying $200 million’s-worth of AI services to the US armed forces. Meta, which aims to “build the future of human connection”, will now be doing so by supporting weapons systems; it has offered a major AI model to military developers, and as it partners with Anduril, it will be creating virtual and mixed reality devices for US military use. Changes at the level of corporate strategy are reflected in personnel; alongside Palantir executives, senior staff from Meta and OpenAI have been sworn in as reserve officers of the US military.
One may well wonder why these companies are making these choices — how Facebook friendships, song-streams, and chatbot use each connect to defence investments. To understand this, one must consider what lies behind them — the vast social and technological infrastructure of data and AI, an infrastructure now being converted to military ends. AI is a dual-use technology, trained with and used upon vast pools of data. Tools used to analyse social media users can be used to assess giant streams of intercepted communications. Systems developed for autonomous cars can be used to animate autonomous military vehicles. Voice recognition software can be converted to acoustic detection tooling, and thus into air raid warning systems. Software and hardware developed for games can be used to direct drones. AI-enabled tools thus can be used in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, to recognise targets, and in navigating unmanned weapons systems.
More from this authorThe UK’s last shot at AI relevance
By James Kingston
In this respect, AI is the culmination of a long-running union. Intelligence and information have always been crucial to war; AI deepens this. Turing laid the theoretical foundations for AI while cracking Nazi cryptography; at today’s GCHQ, his successors use it to provide insights to Britain and its allies. Grizelda, a Ukrainian equivalent to Palantir, is developing a data fusion platform to improve battlefield making & awareness. In Gaza, Israel’s “Lavender” system aggregates and analyses data to select targets for assasination; using AI, it identified as many as 37,000 targets in Hamas and other terrorist groups. Such programs sit at the highest levels of state policy. At the centre of China’s drive to modernise its military are the goals of “informatisation” and “intelligencisation” — an emphasis on the collecting and pooling of data, combined with the increasing use of intelligent weapons and systems.
As AI advances, so too does the machinery that houses it. Physical hardware created for peaceful ends can easily be repurposed for war. Drones used by hobbyists and farmers have already become weapons; so too could the next wave of consumer hardware. Elon Musk claims Tesla will be producing one million Optimus robots per year by 2030, and Chinese manufacturers are already moving humanoid robots into mass production. With bi- and quadripedal robots advertised for use in elder care, disaster recovery, and manufacturing, we can expect to see them also being used in warfare; indeed, more primitive robots already are. UAVs gain much of their military utility from their role as delivery platforms for interchangeable tools, equipment, and weaponry; conjured into existence for commercial use across every sector of the economy, the robot fleets of the future may similarly be platforms for the creation of drone armies.
These machines will enter a world increasingly focused on the creation of autonomous systems. AI agents — algorithms empowered with decision making abilities — are infiltrating our daily lives, playing a deepening role in everything from financial trading to corporate sales to the booking of holidays. This is further reflected in military priorities, where purchasing decisions, technology trials, and the stated aims of policymakers now evoke the replacement of the human soldier. Faced with high casualties and a smaller population than their enemy, the Ukrainian military aims to remove warfighters from direct combat. In 2024, Ukraine ordered 10,000 fully autonomous UAVs; although only a fraction of their overall drone production, it illustrates the trends ahead. Britain too seeks to reduce the role of humans — its last strategic defence review expected a 20%-40%-40% lineup between human, manned, and autonomous systems.
Suggested readingBritain is not ready for war
By Aris Roussinos
The competitive logic of warfare will lead to a continued reduction in human control. Mass production of cheap, high-attrition drones drives human warfighters away from the battlefield; their slower reaction times, and their emotional and physical needs, put them at an increasing disadvantage. As autonomous tools develop further, this dynamic can only deepen; in only six months, Helsing moved between conceptualising, designing, producing, and testing an AI-powered fighter jet. Military theorists conceptualise an increasingly autonomous progress of targets through the kill chain. In some scenarios, humans may not be involved at all. In digital warfare, milliseconds can matter — and thus the pressure of military competition could even drive us away from command itself. We will become ghosts in our own machines.
The more we remove humans, the more we remove the capacity of human actors to hinder, moderate, and alter the systems that surround them. If we lose control over the guns, we may not be able to stop them from firing. If we no longer even make guns, then we will lose the capacity to stop their production, and to influence those who want them produced. Strikes, walkouts, and shutdowns have all enabled humans and human organisations to exercise control over industrial capital, and with it the priorities of owners and policymakers. Things may soon look rather different. China is now building “dark factories” — places of production so fully automated, so entirely without the need for human supervision, that they do not even bother to keep the lights on. To return to Chairman Mao — we could soon lose not just power over the gun, but also the power to make the gun.
Guns and industrial systems matter, for warfare is the engine of history. The rise of the West was largely driven by the competitive effects of warfare in Europe. Princes needed to defend territory against their neighbours, and to do so they needed ever-better armies. To feed, fund, and organise these armies, states looked for ways to deepen their tax bases, raise capital, and to mobilise their resources. Tax reforms, capital markets, and modern bureaucracies were created as a result. Spurred by and shaping these innovations came new ideologies; it is no accident that nationalism, socialism, communism, and fascism accompanied evolutions in mass warfare. The need to sustain the social, economic and technological base for war drove the modern world into being; herding conscripts into battle birthed mass politics.
Automated production, data aggregation, and the rise of autonomous systems brings a new era into focus. If humans no longer fight wars, more power will accrue to the owners of these autonomous systems — the owners of capital, the owners of hardware, and those who control or can own the data infrastructures that power them. If humans no longer make weapons, or control the factories that make weapons, or generate the economic activity that provides the revenues with which to make these weapons, then we are in a new reality: disempowerment for the many, hyper-power for the few. If this technical capacity is not decentralised, then economic and civil life will be decided neither by the will of the people, nor of their chosen representatives. It will be dictated instead by the systemic power and fabulous wealth of hyper oligarchs and a smattering of dictatorships, the wielders of an algorithmic power untrammelled by the need for human collaborators. Historians write of the fiscal-military state; soon we may see the agentic-military state. Time will tell what that means.
At home and abroad, the struggle for power will be won by those who control the robots. Nations must consider their choices. Britain is prepared neither for the drone age, nor the changing nature of power. Lacking a strong industrial base and sufficient local tech champions, we buy our weapons and our software from others, mainly in the United States. This creates vulnerability, for digitisation and AI impose new layers of influence and control, layers that may one day circumscribe the independence and freedom of British policymakers. Sellers of hardware can refuse to provide new models; sellers of software can refuse to provide new licenses and upgrades. Indeed, the integration of digital and physical systems means software providers could use kill switches to render hardware platforms inoperable from afar. One day, our weapons may be turned against us: for there are no permanent friends in international affairs, only interests. It is in Britain’s interest that it acquire functional sovereignty over its military strength.
If we wish to remain an independent country, British leaders, British companies, and British citizens must understand and control the autonomous systems that will wage its wars and grow its economy. A robust tech sector and technically competent population helped Ukraine maintain her freedom, and it is this that Britain must build. If we develop a population that can understand and control the technologies around them, we can resist disempowerment. For national defence, and to build the tech giants of tomorrow, Britain must embrace its geeks. History can guide us; ARM’s success was born in the BBC Micro, a computer distributed to schools to accompany a BBC computer literacy program. The BBC should now launch a drone literacy program, focused on how physical robots will change our world, and selecting British consumer drone companies to be marketed alongside it. Hacker houses, tech foundries, and maker spaces should be geared to help people understand and innovate with robots. In the era of AI, the best defence to liberty will lie not in bearing arms, but in maintaining the power to shape them. France birthed the levée en masse; Britain must prepare for the levée en drone.
James Kingston works in web3. He is the author of the Adam Smith Institute paper Profitable Peripherals: Maximising the potential of British CDOTs.
unherd.com · James Kingston
17. The World’s Taiwan Strategy Runs Through the Philippines
Geography matters. We need strategic agility platforms and the Philippines is one of the ideal locations.
Optimizing U.S. and Allied Forces for Deterrence and Defense Throughout Indo-Pacom: From Korea to Australia and Everywhere in Between
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/05/24/us-allies-deterrence-indo-pacific/
Excerpts:
Japan is Asia’s richest, most powerful democracy. The Korean Peninsula is home to Kim Jong Un, who has paired a growing nuclear arsenal with delusions of grandeur. The Taiwan Strait is arguably the region’s most dangerous flashpoint. But somewhat surprisingly, the Philippines is becoming a regional nexus for allied defense integration.
In part, this is because of long-running maritime disputes and the country’s status as a democratic U.S. ally, which eases cooperation. Without the Philippines, it will be very difficult for interested parties to prevent China from steamrolling across the South China Sea.
But China’s maritime territorial ambitions are only part of the story. In bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral settings, the countries discussed here have spoken publicly about the need to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. They understand that the risk of Chinese aggression is growing and that such an eventuality would come with global security and economic repercussions. Yet they remain hesitant to directly involve themselves in cross-strait affairs.
Instead, the Philippines – Taiwan’s next-door neighbor to the south – has become the locus of their efforts. A collection of U.S. Indo-Pacific allies and NATO partners have committed to helping transform the Armed Forces of the Philippines into a more formidable military while securing the legal basis for deploying their own forces to the Philippines – whose geography will make it integral to waging a defense of Taiwan.
For decades, China has been trying to remake the region’s security environment. It may finally be succeeding, though not in the way it hoped.
The World’s Taiwan Strategy Runs Through the Philippines
The Philippines is becoming a regional nexus for defense integration involving U.S. allies from around the globe.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/10/the-worlds-taiwan-strategy-runs-through-the-philippines/
By Michael Mazza
October 10, 2025
Philippine Marines with Marine Battalion Landing Team 7 ride in a combat rubber raiding craft as part of Exercise Alon in San Vicente, Philippines, Aug. 23, 2025.
Credit: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Keegan Jones
The United States is alone in the world in maintaining an unofficial but truly deep relationship with Taiwan. Yet across the Indo-Pacific region and as far afield as Europe, concerns about China’s designs on Taiwan are widespread. While concerned countries do maintain some level of engagement with Taiwan, many seem to have embraced an indirect approach to deterring Beijing. The Philippines is emerging as the center of gravity for these efforts.
In August, Australia and the Philippines publicized plans to finalize a new defense agreement in 2026. The agreement is expected to institutionalize regular bilateral defense ministers’ meetings, enable a larger slate of combined military exercises, and facilitate Australian investments in Philippine defense infrastructure development. This new agreement will build on a track record of deepening security ties, including an earlier Status of Visiting Forces Agreement.
Richard Marles, the Australian defense minister, announced that “Australia is pursuing eight different infrastructure projects across five different locations…for the benefit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.” This is reminiscent of the U.S.-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, through which the United States has secured access to a number of Philippine bases that the Pentagon is now upgrading. Some of these bases were chosen to better position U.S. forces to project power into the South China Sea and towards the Taiwan Strait. The development sites on which the Philippines and Australia agree will reveal much about how both countries envision this evolving security partnership.
The Australia-Philippines partnership is about more than words on paper. The joint announcement came during the third annual Exercise Alon, bilateral maneuvers involving, according to the Australian chief of joint operations, “realistic, high-end warfighting training.” Australia deployed F/A-18 Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers to the Philippines for the first time in what the Australian Department of Defense described as “the largest overseas joint force projection activity that Australia has conducted within our region in recent history.”
In September, the Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement went into effect. The pact paves the way for more military exercises, industrial cooperation, technology exchange, and infrastructure development. “Ultimately, this agreement ensures that our most potent instruments of national power – our armed forces – can operate together,” said Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto C. Teodoro, Jr., “not to disrupt the rules-based international order, but to uphold and preserve it against unilateral attempts to reshape it for narrow interests.”
Tokyo decided some years ago that it was in Japan’s interests to shore up Philippine defense capabilities. When a Chinese naval destroyer and coast guard cutter collided in the South China Sea in August, they were attempting to chase down a Japanese-built Philippine patrol vessel. But the new agreement goes beyond equipment provision. Now there is a legal foundation for Japanese forces to train and exercise on Philippine territory and vice versa.
The number of countries with which the Philippines has such arrangements is growing. Canada agreed to a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement in March of this year, with New Zealand following in April. Manila and Paris launched negotiations in June. That month, General Romeo Brawner, Jr., chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, suggested that South Korea could be next. Teodoro later confirmed this as the government’s intention. Last year, Manila and Seoul elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership.
The Philippines has evolving defense ties with European countries beyond France as well. In January 2024, it agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation with the United Kingdom. Last month, during a visit to the Philippines by the British frigate HMS Richmond, London indicated its intent to negotiate a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement with Manila.
Last year, Manila and Rome announced plans to conclude their own defense MOU. Just this past March, Ukraine and the Philippines began negotiations on co-production of military drones. In May, Germany and the Philippines signed a defense cooperation agreement. In June, Lithuania and the Philippines agreed on a defense memorandum of understanding. At a press conference in Manila, the Lithuanian defense minister spoke openly about Chinese actions targeting Taiwan and the Philippines in the South China Sea.
Japan is Asia’s richest, most powerful democracy. The Korean Peninsula is home to Kim Jong Un, who has paired a growing nuclear arsenal with delusions of grandeur. The Taiwan Strait is arguably the region’s most dangerous flashpoint. But somewhat surprisingly, the Philippines is becoming a regional nexus for allied defense integration.
In part, this is because of long-running maritime disputes and the country’s status as a democratic U.S. ally, which eases cooperation. Without the Philippines, it will be very difficult for interested parties to prevent China from steamrolling across the South China Sea.
But China’s maritime territorial ambitions are only part of the story. In bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral settings, the countries discussed here have spoken publicly about the need to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. They understand that the risk of Chinese aggression is growing and that such an eventuality would come with global security and economic repercussions. Yet they remain hesitant to directly involve themselves in cross-strait affairs.
Instead, the Philippines – Taiwan’s next-door neighbor to the south – has become the locus of their efforts. A collection of U.S. Indo-Pacific allies and NATO partners have committed to helping transform the Armed Forces of the Philippines into a more formidable military while securing the legal basis for deploying their own forces to the Philippines – whose geography will make it integral to waging a defense of Taiwan.
For decades, China has been trying to remake the region’s security environment. It may finally be succeeding, though not in the way it hoped.
Authors
Guest Author
Michael Mazza
Michael Mazza is senior director for research at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security (formerly the Project 2049 Institute) and a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.
18. Japan’s Likely New Prime Minister Could Unnerve the Region
Japan’s Likely New Prime Minister Could Unnerve the Region
Sanae Takaichi’s historic ascent to the leadership could have significant repercussions for the country’s relationships with China, Russia, and the two Koreas.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/10/japans-likely-new-prime-minister-could-unnerve-the-region/
By Derek Grossman
October 17, 2025
Sanae Takaichi speaking at the presidential election of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), where she was elected president of the party in Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 4, 2025.
Credit: Liberal Democratic Party
Japan appears poised to elect its first female prime minister in the coming days – truly a historic achievement. However, the brand of foreign policy espoused by Sanae Takaichi may create heartburn across much, if not most, of Northeast Asia. Takaichi – a staunch conservative who fashions herself as Japan’s Margaret Thatcher – now leads the Liberal Democratic Party. Although she adopted a more pragmatist position on foreign policy during the campaign, Takaichi’s nationalist streak could complicate relations with Tokyo’s neighbors, including China, North Korea, South Korea, and Russia. Indeed, Taiwan may be the only full-throated proponent of her policies. These shifting geopolitical dynamics could create new challenges for Japan and its security ally, the U.S., that they will have to navigate together.
Since it became clear that Takaichi would probably serve as Japan’s next prime minister, China, on the one hand, has welcomed the announcement, while on the other expressed concerns about her motives. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example, hardly exuded confidence in Takaichi, noting “we hope that Japan will abide by the principles and consensus set out in the four political documents between China and Japan, honor its political commitments on major issues such as history and the Taiwan question, follow a positive and rational policy toward China, and put into practice the positioning of comprehensively advancing the strategic relationship of mutual benefit.”
During the 80th anniversary celebration of “Victory Day” to end World War II, which was held in Beijing early last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping remarked that China’s participation in the “resistance war against Japanese aggression” represented “a significant part of the World Anti-Fascist War.” I happened to attend the 12th annual Xiangshan Forum – a Track 1.5 political and security dialogue – in Beijing the following week, and Chinese officials and experts were still basking in the afterglow of this event, headlined by Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who were standing and looking strong together. The anti-Japanese flavor of the event was also palpable, suggesting that Takaichi’s nationalist policies would be highly unwelcome in Beijing.
Chinese commentary has taken an even harsher view of her past foreign policy positions. In one state-run media opinion piece, the author argues that “In her approach to China, Takaichi has adopted a combative tone cloaked in strategic language.” The author further contends that “while she pledged during her campaign to engage in dialogue with Beijing on the Taiwan question, her actual actions may have crossed the red line for the Chinese government,” citing her trip to Taiwan in April, during which she urged security cooperation between Tokyo and Taipei. “This is a dangerous provocation,” noted the author.
Meanwhile, the silence on Takaichi from North Korea is deafening. Pyongyang has thus far refused to comment on her, whether officially or unofficially, but it is hard to envision that the regime would have any positive feelings about Japan’s probable new leader. North Korea has consistently treated Japan like an enemy, occasionally firing ballistic missiles over Japanese airspace and accusing it of collaborating with the U.S. and South Korea to contain and counter the regime. In a speech from February, for example, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned that Japan’s trilateral cooperation risks “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” adding that it was part of “a plot to form a NATO-like regional military bloc.” A separate commentary from state-run media argued within the context of potential constitutional revisions that “Japan has completely transformed into a warfare state possessing full-scale aggression forces.”
South Korea, by contrast, has officially promoted a more cautiously optimistic view of Takaichi. This is important given the decades of strain between Tokyo and Seoul over the so-called “comfort women” issue dating back to the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula in the run-up to, and during, World War II. Seoul’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for instance, noted that “Japan and South Korea are neighboring countries with similar positions in the rapidly changing geopolitical environment and trade order, and we are looking forward to working together with them.”
Indeed, President Lee Jae-myung, though a liberal who would traditionally raise concerns about trusting Tokyo, has followed a more pragmatic approach. Lee has met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba three times – and most significantly once before visiting President Donald Trump at the White House – underscoring that though the U.S. remains South Korea’s top security ally, Japan is an increasingly important security partner as well despite their past differences.
But some South Korean commentary has not been so kind to Takaichi. According to one author, even if Takaichi has recently adjusted it, one must still consider her past rhetoric when judging whether she is good for Seoul. The author highlights that back in 2022, Takaichi said that “when we act ambiguously, such as stopping our visits to Yasukuni Shrine midway, the other side climbs up (付け上がる, tsukeagaru) – a derogatory Japanese term meaning “to take advantage of someone’s politeness or kindness and act impudently.” In Korean slang, the equivalent is “climbing up.” She continued her controversial remarks, according to the commentator, by stating: “If we simply continue to do what is natural, neighboring countries (such as South Korea) will eventually look foolish and stop complaining.”
It is unclear whether or how widespread this South Korean view of Takaichi is, but the good news for Tokyo is that recent public opinion polls suggest that South Koreans generally have a much-improved perception of Japan – in some cases, reaching all-time highs in favorability. Hence, any drop in South Korea’s favorability of Japan would have some cushion as Takaichi takes charge.
Like North Korea, there have been no official or unofficial statements from Russia on Takaichi. That said, given past Japan-Russia tensions over the sovereignty status of the Kuril Islands, Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Japanese sanctions for it, and Moscow’s enhanced security collaboration with Beijing to include occasional joint bomber flights in the region, including in November 2024 over the Sea of Japan, it is highly unlikely that the Kremlin has a positive view of her. At a minimum, her views are misaligned with those of Moscow. She said in March 2022, for example, that “Ukraine is not a distant issue” while pointing to Russian military bases in the Kuril Islands.
Finally, the one unambiguous bright spot for Takaichi across Northeast Asia is Taiwan. She has certainly played up her bona fides when it comes to ensuring the island’s security. During her campaign, for example, Takaichi remarked that “Unilateral changes to the status quo through force or coercion must never occur,” and that “Taiwan is an extremely important partner and a valued friend for Japan.” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has reciprocated by referring to Takaichi as a “staunch friend of Taiwan,” whom he hoped to cooperate with to elevate “Taiwan-Japan relations to a new level.” Meanwhile, a prominent Taiwanese researcher opined that “If Takaichi becomes prime minister, she would be the most Taiwan-friendly Japanese leader since World War II.”
Overall, Tokyo under Prime Minister Takaichi, assuming she takes office, will encounter a regional landscape that will generally (except for Taiwan and perhaps South Korea) view the transition warily and offer little tolerance for any sign of resurging Japanese nationalism. This will be especially true in places like China, North Korea, and Russia. One way to reassure China and the two Koreas would be for Takaichi to disavow future visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, but given her history and past statements, this seems very unlikely. Short of that, she can certainly demonstrate her pivot toward pragmatism by engaging in activities that emphasize regional cooperation rather than Japanese unilateralism or a strengthening of the U.S. alliance to counter a third country. For its part, the U.S. under the Trump administration will likely encourage Japan to do more, especially on its own, which will complicate its calibrated approach. In the end, however, Tokyo should only do what is right for Japan and its relationships throughout the region, and if it means sidelining the U.S. on foreign policy for a time, then so be it.
This article was originally posted on NSBT Japan, the first defense and security industry network in Japan. The publication provides the latest information on security business trends both within Japan and overseas. Read the original article here.
Authors
Contributing Author
Derek Grossman
Derek Grossman is Professor of the Practice of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. At USC, he teaches courses on Indo-Pacific security and political affairs, US foreign policy, and US national security.
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19. Why Is the US Defense Department Funding China’s Military Research?
Excerpts:
The Select Committee’s findings shed light on a much deeper problem with the U.S. approach to technology competition with China: A patchwork approach to oversight has created overlapping authorities between departments and agencies, leaving ample gaps for forum-shopping. Under existing authorities, it is theoretically possible for a Venezuelan company ineligible for contracting with DoD to still access equipment made in its laboratories; or for a sanctioned Russian oligarch to purchase data on Americans’ digital footprints even while being walled off from the U.S. banking system.
To begin closing some of these loopholes, one solution could be for the DoD to prohibit funding for any project that includes collaborators from institutions on any of the U.S. government’s myriad blacklists – including the Section 1260H list, the Entity List and the Treasury Department’s Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List.
This is exactly the approach outlined in the Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act (SAFE Research Act), which passed this September as an amendment to the House version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. If enacted, the amendment would make important changes by prohibiting federal STEM funding to researchers and universities who work with foreign entities known to pose a national security risk. It also mandates increased disclosure through appointed compliance officers of any collaborations or affiliations with adversarial foreign entities.
A decade into U.S. tech competition with China, it’s clear Washington would benefit from taking steps to harmonize its various blacklists. But as they take a more stringent view of international research collaboration, U.S. lawmakers would still do well to remember that the United States’ competitive edge in technology is built on open innovation. In 2022, for example, U.S. researchers collaborated with international partners on 40 percent of science and engineering articles. International collaborations don’t just expand the reach of American science, but also make it more influential, with co-authored work receiving more citations than work written by U.S. researchers alone.
Why Is the US Defense Department Funding China’s Military Research?
It’s time for the U.S. government to start consolidating its blacklists.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/10/why-is-the-us-defense-department-funding-chinas-military-research/
By Caroline Nowak and Ryan Fedasiuk
October 15, 2025
Credit: Depositphotos
A recent report by the House Select Committee on the CCP issued a startling warning: U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) funding has routinely sponsored research conducted by institutions with deep links to China’s defense industrial base. More than 700 publications supported by DoD funding between 2023-2025 involved collaboration with Chinese defense-affiliated institutions – including some that had been at least nominally blacklisted from receiving U.S. equipment.
The report – aptly titled “Fox in the Henhouse” – highlights how a breakdown in interagency communication has led the U.S. government to systematically fail to enforce laws barring Chinese defense institutions from receiving material support.
Defenders of open science are quick to claim that coauthoring research papers is inconsequential. After all, if Chinese researchers can read published articles in Nature, what makes coauthorship such a threat? The important difference is that active research collaboration may provide Chinese defense-linked researchers with tacit knowledge, sensitive data, and experimental designs – insights that never make it into printed research, but that are immensely valuable to accelerating China’s military modernization.
For example, a 2025 U.S. Navy-funded study on swarm mission planning was co-authored by the University of Texas and a “Seven Sons of National Defense” school that had been on the U.S. Entity List since 2001. That collaboration gave Chinese defense-linked institutions access not just to results with direct military applications, but to the research process (such as choosing a decision-making model) in areas directly applicable to autonomous systems, cyber defense, and electronic warfare.
There is no reason U.S. taxpayer dollars should support research partnerships with foreign institutions that are building weapons for the People’s Liberation Army. The United States already prohibits companies identified on its 1260H list of Chinese military-affiliated companies from contracting with the Department of Defense, while the Commerce Department’s Entity List blocks exports of sensitive U.S. technology to named institutions. But these prohibitions are limited to restricting government procurement and equipment sales, not the allocation of research grants. This has allowed certain Chinese defense labs to benefit from U.S. funding, even while they are formally recognized as national security risks.
The Select Committee’s findings shed light on a much deeper problem with the U.S. approach to technology competition with China: A patchwork approach to oversight has created overlapping authorities between departments and agencies, leaving ample gaps for forum-shopping. Under existing authorities, it is theoretically possible for a Venezuelan company ineligible for contracting with DoD to still access equipment made in its laboratories; or for a sanctioned Russian oligarch to purchase data on Americans’ digital footprints even while being walled off from the U.S. banking system.
To begin closing some of these loopholes, one solution could be for the DoD to prohibit funding for any project that includes collaborators from institutions on any of the U.S. government’s myriad blacklists – including the Section 1260H list, the Entity List and the Treasury Department’s Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List.
This is exactly the approach outlined in the Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act (SAFE Research Act), which passed this September as an amendment to the House version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. If enacted, the amendment would make important changes by prohibiting federal STEM funding to researchers and universities who work with foreign entities known to pose a national security risk. It also mandates increased disclosure through appointed compliance officers of any collaborations or affiliations with adversarial foreign entities.
A decade into U.S. tech competition with China, it’s clear Washington would benefit from taking steps to harmonize its various blacklists. But as they take a more stringent view of international research collaboration, U.S. lawmakers would still do well to remember that the United States’ competitive edge in technology is built on open innovation. In 2022, for example, U.S. researchers collaborated with international partners on 40 percent of science and engineering articles. International collaborations don’t just expand the reach of American science, but also make it more influential, with co-authored work receiving more citations than work written by U.S. researchers alone.
What the United States needs is a set of rigorously enforced guardrails that apply in equal measure to exchanging equipment, personnel, information, or capital with problematic foreign entities – not a strict ban on cross-national scientific collaboration. The goal should not be to shut the door on all scientific collaboration, but to ensure that when American taxpayers foot the bill for scientific research, they do not unwittingly aid foreign militaries or train their defense engineers.
If Congress does take action to restrict cross-national research collaboration, it should carefully define what falls under the scope of “national security” so as to not adversely affect STEM research that benefits the United States. In public health, for example, China-U.S. collaboration has been fruitful on topics from SARS to HIV/AIDS; there can certainly still be valuable partnerships on particular subjects. And, in cases where research does fall under the scope of national security, the United States should feel confident turning to trusted partners to sustain collaboration.
As it begins harmonizing application of various technology restrictions, the United States must also be precise about what counts as a “defense-linked” institution. Past efforts built around vague terms like “military-civil fusion” left universities guessing, leading to overcorrection and in some cases strangling benign partnerships. To be effective, new restrictions must set clear, transparent criteria and improve information-sharing across agencies. Otherwise, blacklisted institutions will keep slipping through the cracks. The goal is to keep research open where possible – but to draw firm lines where collaboration feeds directly into adversaries’ military or commercial advantage.
The Select Committee’s findings are alarming: Taxpayer dollars should never underwrite breakthroughs that strengthen China’s military. A structural fix, whether through agency action or legislation like the SAFE Research Act, would empower the U.S. government to detect cases where this is happening. But an effective response should pair precise criteria for protecting national security with better cross-agency information sharing, if it wants to avoid stifling legitimate science.
Authors
Guest Author
Caroline Nowak
Caroline Nowak is a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute.
Guest Author
Ryan Fedasiuk
Ryan Fedasiuk is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University.
20. The Inside Story of the Gaza Deal
Excerpts:
The Americans’ genius was to convert that negative energy into fuel to propel negotiations to their goal. You want Israel to stop? Then let’s end the war, they told the Sunni countries, and thus enlisted them in a framework that seemed impossible: a pan-Arab, almost pan-Muslim commitment to the elimination of Hamas. Dermer drafted Netanyahu’s apology for the death of the Qatari security official in the airstrike; in Doha they reciprocated with a goodwill gesture by dramatically toning down Al Jazeera’s hostile tone.
More than enlisting the entire Arab world against Hamas, which had annoyed the whole region, the achievement was to enlist it for a framework that does not include the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the foreseeable future. That is, for example, what held the Emiratis back from entering Gaza a year and a half ago. In one sense, that is the great innovation: Before the plan, Gaza belonged to the Palestinian Authority; now it is Arab-international until further notice. The PA, meanwhile, hates Hamas so much that it agreed.
Yes, there will be a two-state solution, Dermer said this week, but not between the river and the sea. It will be within the Gaza Strip itself. The plan is that as long as Hamas does not disarm, reconstruction will begin—but only in the half of the Strip under Israeli control. What two years of war did not accomplish will be done by market forces: Where will the population feel it is better to live—amid the ruins under Hamas boots, or in a rehabilitated area with an Emirati-funded school and a trailer home for each family?
The Americans believe this is a temporary situation and are convinced that Hamas will be disarmed soon. Israel, of course, is much more skeptical. In a recent meeting, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir made a request of the Americans: Explain to me please: Your multinational force, with a few battalions, enters a tunnel. Hamas operatives are armed there. How exactly does this disarm Hamas? Who exactly will hand over the weapons? And what if they don’t?
The Inside Story of the Gaza Deal
Inside the negotiations, botched air strike, and international pressure that produced an uneasy peace.
By Amit Segal
10.17.25 —
Israel
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-inside-story-of-the-gaza-deal
thefp.com
If Israelis had heard how the president of the United States spoke about the hostages, it’s doubtful that he would have received such thunderous cheers at Hostages Square last Saturday night. To say they were a secondary concern for him would be an understatement—and even that understates it. President Donald Trump favored eliminating Hamas the American way, and 20 living hostages (he was always confused about their number and minimized it) seemed to him a marginal matter, collateral damage.
Only belatedly did he perceive how strategic the issue was for the Israelis, and therefore for their government as well. In one of the discussions before the second phase of the Israeli army’s offensive on Gaza City began in mid-2025, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the scar that would remain in Israeli society if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conquered Gaza City at the cost of the hostages’ lives. Allow me to guess that he never really believed that moment would come.
Indeed, in recent months, the assessment by Netanyahu and his minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, was that an operation to conquer Gaza City, if it happened, most certainly would not reach completion. Here is the inside story.
Following the successful war in Iran in June, Israel tried to use the momentum to reach a partial deal in Gaza. The idea was to release half the hostages and, during a 60-day ceasefire, arrive more or less at the conditions achieved this week.
But Hamas, inspired by a perception of mass starvation in Gaza that was gaining international traction, refused. President Trump, still in the shadow of Israel’s victory in Iran, thought the IDF could eliminate the remnants of Hamas as quickly as it smashed Tehran’s nuclear program. Ultimately, the combination of Hamas’ refusal to accept the deal and the president’s ambition led Israel to decide to enter Gaza City in August.
The idea was proposed by former Shin Bet chief and current minister Avi Dichter. Conquering the city is the end of Hamas, he said at one meeting. The magic happened almost immediately: “Even before our forces entered the city,” Dermer recounted, “three days of talk about the operation did what three months of negotiations failed to do. Hamas suddenly agreed to a partial deal. But by then, time had already run out.”
Israel faced two options. One: Conquer the remainder of the Strip and establish a military government with American support. Dermer and Netanyahu, however, believed that would require national unity and backing from Trump. The first component did not exist, and the latter was highly unlikely.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer attend a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The second option was a plan manufactured by Israel, led by the Americans, and supported by Arab states. President Ronald Reagan once told his people: You’ll write the plans, and I’ll be the presenter who markets them. This plan was no different, with Dermer filling the role of the writer. It was clear that any plan presented as purely Israeli would be pronounced dead before it was even born. That doesn’t mean every tweet was coordinated, Dermer said at a cabinet meeting this week, but on the big matters, Jerusalem and Washington moved together.
Thus began arduous negotiations with Middle Eastern countries. During a round of talks in New York, it seemed impossible to get all those elephants into the same private room. Nevertheless, Israel’s representatives returned from there with 17 substantive comments from the Sunni states and even an agreement in the offing.
Then came September 9. Early in the morning, a three-person phone call was held about an impending Israeli strike on Hamas leaders gathering in Qatar. The participants were Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Minister Dermer. All three supported the attack. Many issues came up in the consultation, but one particular issue did not: None of them believed there was an Israeli commitment to the Qataris not to strike Hamas personnel on their soil. Netanyahu called President Trump minutes before the strike, but the president was groggy after a late night of discussions. It took time to reach him. The strike went ahead.
So far, it’s unclear how most of the senior Hamas figures escaped the attack, but it’s obvious that it brought the deal closer. I recently wrote that it was one of the most successful failed assassinations in history, in the sense that it signaled to the Qataris that the war would come to them if they did not stop their double game.
Dermer sees it differently. He links the strike to the peace agreement, but in a completely different way. The Qataris, it turns out, were convinced that by agreeing to host hostage release negotiations, they had obtained immunity from Israeli strikes on their soil. From their perspective, the strike was a blatant, offensive breach of that commitment.
Qatar hadn’t managed to help forge a deal for quite some time, but it’s not half bad at thwarting them. In Jerusalem, they called Qatar “the spoiler state”—one that can easily ruin any agreement, as it did to the Egyptian hostage release deal that was forming this spring behind its back.
Qatar is a complicated nation, Netanyahu recently said. What is it made of? In Jerusalem, they describe two trains running behind the same engine. One, led by the Qatari ruler’s mother and brother, supports the Muslim Brotherhood and is an unmistakable hater of Israel. The other, led by the prime minister and several other senior figures, seeks rapprochement with the West.
Around April of this year, a turning point was identified in Doha. Relations with the United States tightened significantly, and Hamas, an oddly patronized child, became a burden and a stain. The opportunity then presented itself following the strike in Doha, when the Arab states rushed to assemble at the emir of Qatar’s conference, both in anger at Israel and fear of a blue-and-white domination of the Middle East.
The strike on Doha was one of the most successful failed assassinations in history, in the sense that it signaled to the Qataris that the war would come to them if they did not stop their double game.
The Americans’ genius was to convert that negative energy into fuel to propel negotiations to their goal. You want Israel to stop? Then let’s end the war, they told the Sunni countries, and thus enlisted them in a framework that seemed impossible: a pan-Arab, almost pan-Muslim commitment to the elimination of Hamas. Dermer drafted Netanyahu’s apology for the death of the Qatari security official in the airstrike; in Doha they reciprocated with a goodwill gesture by dramatically toning down Al Jazeera’s hostile tone.
More than enlisting the entire Arab world against Hamas, which had annoyed the whole region, the achievement was to enlist it for a framework that does not include the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the foreseeable future. That is, for example, what held the Emiratis back from entering Gaza a year and a half ago. In one sense, that is the great innovation: Before the plan, Gaza belonged to the Palestinian Authority; now it is Arab-international until further notice. The PA, meanwhile, hates Hamas so much that it agreed.
Yes, there will be a two-state solution, Dermer said this week, but not between the river and the sea. It will be within the Gaza Strip itself. The plan is that as long as Hamas does not disarm, reconstruction will begin—but only in the half of the Strip under Israeli control. What two years of war did not accomplish will be done by market forces: Where will the population feel it is better to live—amid the ruins under Hamas boots, or in a rehabilitated area with an Emirati-funded school and a trailer home for each family?
The Americans believe this is a temporary situation and are convinced that Hamas will be disarmed soon. Israel, of course, is much more skeptical. In a recent meeting, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir made a request of the Americans: Explain to me please: Your multinational force, with a few battalions, enters a tunnel. Hamas operatives are armed there. How exactly does this disarm Hamas? Who exactly will hand over the weapons? And what if they don’t?
You didn’t believe the first phase would happen, the Americans said; believe that the second will happen too. Have a little faith, the Jews with an American flag on their lapel told the Jews with an Israeli flag on theirs.
This piece was originally published in Israel Hayom and in Amit Segal’s newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel.
thefp.com
21. A big focus on fighting drones at US Army Association show in DC
A big focus on fighting drones at US Army Association show in DC - Asia Times
But buyers looking for great technology to seek out the operators and destroy drone supply chains will have to wait some more
https://asiatimes.com/2025/10/a-big-focus-on-fighting-drones-at-us-army-association-show-in-dc/
asiatimes.com · Stephen Bryen · October 15, 2025
The Association of the US Army’s annual large scale show in Washington October 13-15 featured a wide range of new products and solutions tailored to army needs.
Featured ground systems include the Oshkosh Striker with the new Medium Caliber Weapon System and the AM General MIMIC-V for special operations, while a major focus on drone and counter-drone capabilities was evident.
Other key systems highlighted were General Dynamics’ PERCH and MUTT XM, which integrates loitering munitions and a Gatling gun for countering unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and the General Dynamics NEXUS Stryker (a new version of a command and control vehicle).
New solutions at the show focused on helping the Army operate against enemy drones.
The Ukraine war has changed land warfare significantly, rendering the use of armored platforms including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles difficult in a drone-heavy combat environment. One outcome has been resorting to small units of three to five soldiers to achieve certain combat objectives.
The Russians, for example, have been using motorcycles and even horses, a huge step back in time from a combat perspective. Both sides also increasingly feature standoff weapons, but find it difficult to capitalize even where they can knock out a command post or cluster of enemy soldiers.
Russian soldiers during a horse-mounted training in the Donetsk region, 2025. (Photo: Russian media
Drones have also replaced, to some degree, long range aviation and missiles. Deep precision strikes by the Russians on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, and by Ukraine on Russian territory, illustrate the usefulness of attack drones on fixed targets. While both sides understand they will sacrifice many drones to knock out a target, and use some of them as decoys, overall the costs of operation are much lower than a conventional fighter jet or bomber-led attack, and the consequences far more acceptable when it comes to manpower, which survives operations and the cost of hardware which is lost.
The technologies that have appeared at AUSA mostly are intended to improve drone detection and methods to destroy them. So far, none of the technology promoted shows any great ability to seek out the operators and, inter alia, to destroy drone supply chains.
Modern counter-drone systems employ a layered approach, integrating various technologies to cover the full spectrum of drone defense – from early detection to neutralization. The solutions on display at AUSA 2025 exemplify this strategy.
Detection and sensing technologies
At the heart of any effective counter-drone system is the ability to detect and identify aerial threats early. Several exhibitors at AUSA have been demonstrating advanced sensor technologies, including long-range thermal cameras, radio frequency (RF) detection systems and electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) cameras.
Motorola Solutions, for example, is showcasing an integrated network of RF sensors and thermal cameras designed to track drones and detect their operators. These sensors form the backbone of early warning systems, especially useful in low-visibility conditions or complex urban environments.
Electronic warfare and jamming
Once a drone is identified, neutralization typically involves non-kinetic methods such as RF jamming and signal spoofing. Trust Automation is presenting its GAT™ UAS jammer at AUSA. It’s a compact, weapons-mountable device capable of disrupting drone communications and disabling threats without the need for physical destruction. These jammers are particularly useful in scenarios where the use of kinetic force may result in collateral damage, such as near civilian populations or critical infrastructure.
Trust Automation’s Small-Unmanned Air Defense System (SUADS), which provides both fixed-site protection — such as Air Force base defense operations — and rapidly deployable defense for key assets and units in combat zones.
As more and more drones are capable of autonomous operations, and are equipped with multiple sensors to seek out targets and provide self-situational awareness, jammers will inevitably focus more on scout and reconnaissance drones, which must communicate – and less on attack combat drones, which may not need radio communications.
Moreover, on the battlefield there already are combat drones connected by fiber optics that are not jammable.
A Ukrainian soldier shows an example of a fiber-optic FPV drone. Photo: АрміяІнформ
Directed-energy weapons
For higher-end threats or swarm scenarios, directed-energy weapons like high-energy lasers are gaining traction. Previous AUSA exhibitions featured systems such as Leonardo DRS’s Stryker-mounted laser weapons, designed to destroy drones mid-flight with precision. These systems offer a cost-effective and scalable solution for neutralizing multiple drones in rapid succession, a key capability in defending against mass drone attacks.
Counter-UAS Directed-energy Stryker
The problems facing laser solutions are making them small enough and sufficiently portable to play a sustained role in combat scenarios. Israel, for example, is already putting lasers on tanks and combat vehicles. Called Lite Beam, the Israeli system is already deployed and has registered some early success.
Lite Beam. Photo: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
Autonomous interceptors and drone-on-drone defense
One of the more novel technologies on display comes from Ondas, whose Iron Drone Raider uses autonomous drones to intercept and disable enemy unmanned aerial systems in flight. These drone-on-drone systems represent a shift toward fully autonomous, AI-enabled defense platforms that can respond to threats without constant human input, improving reaction time and reducing operator workload.
Drone-on-drone warfare in theory makes good sense, but operationally has many challenges. The Ukrainians claim they have already knocked out some Russian drones in drone-on-drone combat. As a practical solution, this solution probably works best for protecting fixed-site targets such as command centers, airfields or infrastructure, mostly because it is a potentially cheap solution compared with the cost of air defense systems. How it compares with using lasers is an issue that needs to be sorted out.
In dense combat environments, cheap systems without effective IFF (Identification Friend or Foe), presents an operational challenge.
Command and control integration
Technology alone is insufficient without the infrastructure to manage it. Many systems at AUSA are paired with advanced command and control (C2) platforms that integrate sensor data, streamline decision-making and automate responses.
Motorola Solutions is presenting a SaaS-based control system developed in partnership with SkySafe, which combines drone tracking data with situational awareness tools. These platforms enable forces to identify not only the drone but also its flight path and potential operator location – critical information in both kinetic and electronic countermeasures.
Portability, modularity, and rapid deployment
Flexibility is another essential feature of modern C-UAS systems. Exhibitors such as Trust Automation are showcasing modular systems such as the Small-Unmanned Air Defense System (SUADS), which can be rapidly deployed in both fixed-base and mobile operations. These solutions are built to adapt to different mission needs – from protecting military convoys on the move to securing remote outposts or urban areas.
Operational challenges and real-world applications
The capabilities displayed at AUSA 2025 are a direct response to operational challenges faced by US and allied forces. The growing use of drone swarms – in which dozens of small UAS coordinate attacks – demands fast, scalable defenses.
Joint Army experiments have simulated such scenarios, validating systems that can detect and defeat 40+ drones simultaneously. Moreover, the widespread availability of low-cost commercial drones has made them accessible to insurgents, criminal groups, and hostile state actors alike. This increases the need for adaptable, rules-of-engagement-sensitive defenses that work across all theaters of operation.
Key challenges these technologies aim to overcome include:
- Detection of low-observable drones with small radar cross-sections
- Minimizing collateral damage through non-kinetic defeat methods
- Integration with existing air defense networks
- Rapid deployment and mobility for front-line and field use
- Scalability for swarm defense and large area coverage
- Complexity and support (and in the case of jammers and lasers, adequate electrical power/recharging)
- Training and integration in current-day forces
The Way Ahead
The US Army is on the right path in seeking solutions to drone-based warfare. But the road ahead is strewn with many potholes, especially if cheap drones become more stealthy and utilize autonomous guidance and target detection.
The Russians, for example, have recently modernized their Geran-2 drone incorporating some artificial intelligence capability and sensor integration allowing the drone to go after individual enemy targets such as machine-gun nests and other visually identifiable aimpoints.
Recovered Russian drones were found stuffed with US and allied components, including an NVIDIA chipset. Current sanctions and other measures cannot keep up with technology proliferation, and US Army solutions will need to come up with smart solutions that keep pace with battlefield evolution and innovation.
Nvidia Jetson IO microchip, used for the AI-powered features. Photo: HUR
If the US Army were fighting in Ukraine today, it would not have full capability to deal with drone threats. It is obvious there is a need to move far more quickly and smartly.
Asia Times senior correspondent Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense. This article was originally published on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Power. It is republished with permission.
asiatimes.com · Stephen Bryen · October 15, 2025
22. Taiwan's return to China a vital part of post-World War II order
A CCP mouthpiece.
Quite an argument here.
Excerpts:
The island of Taiwan, as part of China, was not, is not and will not be entitled to keep any "diplomatic" relations with other countries. After the PRC was founded in 1949, the central government of the PRC rightfully became the sole legal government of China. China's sovereignty remains indivisible, and Taiwan's status as part of China's territory remains unchanged, both politically and legally. The government of the PRC naturally represents the whole China and fully enjoys and exercises China's sovereignty.
In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 with an overwhelming majority. The resolution says the consensus is "to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations". Hence, upholding and respecting the authority of the UN requires adherence to the one-China principle.
Taiwan's return to China a vital part of post-World War II order
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202510/17/WS68f17b27a310f735438b570b.html
CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2025-10-17 07:09
JIN DING/CHINA DAILY
Editor's note: On Oct 15, a seminar marking the 80th anniversary of Taiwan's restoration to China was held at Beijing Union University. Experts reviewed historical documents, reaffirmed the legal basis of Taiwan's return to the motherland, and rebutted the so-called "undetermined status of Taiwan" narrative. Excerpts follow:
UN resolution requires following one-China principle
Taiwan's restoration to China was the outcome of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the World Anti-Fascist War. Following their summit in Cairo, Egypt, on Dec 1, 1943, China, the United States and the United Kingdom issued the Cairo Declaration, which unequivocally stated that the three Allied powers will ensure all the Chinese territories captured and occupied by Japan, including Northeast China, Taiwan and Penghu Islands, are restored to China. As a pivotal document in international law, the Cairo Declaration laid the groundwork for the establishment of the postwar world order, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.
On July 26, 1945, the same three countries issued the Potsdam Proclamation, stipulating the terms of Japan's surrender. Article 8 of the proclamation says "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine".
As an instrument of Japan's surrender, the Potsdam Proclamation has legally binding force in international law. On Aug 14,1945, Japan officially accepted the Potsdam Proclamation. The next month, during the formal Japanese surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri, the Japanese government's representative signed the Instrument of Surrender while committing to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Proclamation "in good faith".
Thus a legally interlocking chain was formed by the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, affirming that Japan must restore all Chinese territories including Taiwan to China. On Oct 25, 1945, the ceremony to accept Japan's surrender in the Taiwan province of the China war theater was held in Taipei, where Ando Rikichi, the Japanese government head on the island, signed the formal surrender document.
The Chinese government announced that Taiwan and the Penghu Islands had been restored to China, and it was resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan. From that point on, China recovered Taiwan de jure and de facto. And its subsequent administration and governance have been widely accepted and recognized by the international community, constituting an integral part of the international order based on international law.
The Democratic Progressive Party authorities' attempt to use the so-called "San Francisco Peace Treaty" to claim that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait "should not be subordinate to each other" is doomed to failure. The "peace treaty" is a product of a separate treaty between Japan and the US and its allies, which excluded most of the countries that resisted Japanese aggression, particularly China and the Soviet Union. The "peace treaty" violates a series of important international documents issued during and after World War II, making it illegal and invalid.
The island of Taiwan, as part of China, was not, is not and will not be entitled to keep any "diplomatic" relations with other countries. After the PRC was founded in 1949, the central government of the PRC rightfully became the sole legal government of China. China's sovereignty remains indivisible, and Taiwan's status as part of China's territory remains unchanged, both politically and legally. The government of the PRC naturally represents the whole China and fully enjoys and exercises China's sovereignty.
In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 with an overwhelming majority. The resolution says the consensus is "to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations". Hence, upholding and respecting the authority of the UN requires adherence to the one-China principle.
Wang Shushen is deputy director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
23. The Last Days of the Pentagon Press Corps
The Last Days of the Pentagon Press Corps
I’ve been evicted from a building I’ve covered for 18 years. I’ll keep doing my job anyway.
By Nancy A. Youssef
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/archive/2025/10/pentagon-press-corps-hegseth/684570/
The Atlantic · Nancy A. Youssef · October 15, 2025
The first person I saw when I walked into the Pentagon for the final time was Jimmy. I don’t even know his last name, but I know his story. Before he started work at the labyrinthine headquarters of America’s armed forces, he was a medic in the Marine Corps. For the past 21 years, he has been a building police officer and an unofficial, affable greeter. Jimmy only told me about his military career in 2021, the morning after 13 troops were killed in a suicide bombing at the entrance of the Kabul airport amid the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everyone talked about the 11 Marines killed that day, but Jimmy remembered the one Navy corpsman among them, a medic who, like him, had been assigned to travel with the unit, just in case.
For nearly two decades, Jimmy stood guard beside two large mosaics showing the faces of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks. The displays came down during the pandemic, a symbol of a nation that had moved on from the War on Terror and was beginning to focus on new threats. Last month, President Donald Trump told troops that the country’s adversary was “the enemy within.”
Nearly all of the Pentagon press corps is leaving the building this week, barred from working there under restrictions imposed by the Trump administration. My fellow journalists and I will continue to do our jobs, reporting on the U.S. military in every way we know how. But something is lost when the leadership of the Department of Defense chooses to close itself off to scrutiny in the way it has. On the most basic level, the public loses access to information it has a right to know, along with the right to ask questions of those entrusted with spending nearly $1 trillion from taxes and managing 3 million employees. But something intangible is lost too, including the privilege of meeting people like Jimmy, whose names may never appear in print but who are essential to how we understand the U.S. military. Before I had even crossed the vestibule to enter the building this morning, I was thinking about the stories I would no longer hear, the people I would never meet.
In the afternoon, officials confiscated the Pentagon press badges of hundreds of journalists, including mine. Dozens of news organizations had reached the same conclusion: The Pentagon’s new, 21-page press restrictions prevented us from doing basic news gathering, compromised our First Amendment rights, and disregarded the public’s right to know. News organizations, including this one, decided that we would rather cover the military without building access than do it under the Pentagon’s terms.
Read: Why is the Pentagon afraid of the press?
“We fundamentally oppose the restrictions that the Trump administration is imposing on journalists who are reporting on matters of defense and national security,” Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, said in a statement on Monday announcing that we would not agree to the new terms. “The requirements violate our First Amendment rights, and the rights of Americans who seek to know how taxpayer-funded military resources and personnel are being deployed.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in justifying what he has described as “common sense” changes, has misrepresented what journalists and Pentagon officials have done since the building opened in 1943. He has insisted that all he is doing is asking the press to wear badges, to not roam the building unfettered, and to make sure those with access to classified information do their jobs correctly. The truth is that we have always worn badges and we never had unfettered access in the building. And although serious news organizations have always taken into account national-security considerations when deciding what to publish, they do so while also considering the importance of information being made public.
As far as anyone knows, no security breach by any Pentagon journalists brought about the new restrictions. Indeed, the biggest violation of national-security norms since Hegseth entered the building 10 months ago was by Hegseth himself, when he moved sensitive plans about upcoming air strikes on Yemen from a secure government system to a non-governmental app, Signal, and shared them with this magazine’s editor in chief.
Read: The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans
Hegseth’s disdain for critical coverage of any kind has been evident since he took office. Within weeks, he evicted several news organizations from their workspaces. Then he barred journalists from using the press-briefing room. In May, he restricted the press to a handful of the Pentagon’s 17.5 miles of hallways. In all, there have been only two Hegseth press briefings and two others on camera by his top spokesperson. Instead, Hegseth and his press team have relied on social media, posting a steady stream of attacks on reporters and their stories, and even on retired military leaders. After several news organizations posted explanations of why they would not agree to the new rules, Hegseth retweeted their messages with the waving-hand emoji. Bringing back the “warrior ethos,” as Hegseth has repeatedly vowed to do, apparently includes keyboard warriors.
As journalists walked out of the building, taking our collective centuries of experience on the beat with us, we passed dozens of locked doors leading to secure rooms that we have never entered. Inside those rooms sat career military officers and civilians, some of whom believe that the oath to protect secrets and the responsibility to engage with the American public through the press are two values that can coexist.
In recent days, mid-level troops have been reaching out to me, unsolicited, and promising that they would keep providing journalists with information, not to snub their civilian leaders but to uphold the values embedded in the Constitution. Retired spokespeople have written to me to say that they, too, have felt like they are losing something with the media’s departure.
As I said goodbye to the cleaning crews, the Pentagon police, the troops, and the longtime civilian staffers, what I heard was, in effect, a collective sigh. I repeatedly heard stories of people asking themselves, How long can I stay here? Some said they were tired of watching colleagues be pushed out, fearful of when they themselves would be asked to sign new rules that they felt went against their oath to defend the Constitution or their personal ethics. “I am tired of new rules,” one civilian told me. “They clearly don’t want us,” an Army colonel said.
The worries I heard have been, for many, growing for some time. When Hegseth summoned the military’s top generals and commanders to Quantico, Virginia, last month, some told their staffs that they feared they would be asked to take a loyalty oath and were considering how they might respond. (There was no oath, but the defense secretary did announce plans to drive out anyone who can’t meet physical-fitness standards. Hegseth later issued a memo ordering troops to watch or read his speech.)
Read: Hundreds of generals try to keep a straight face
By the time of the speech, the press corps was already preparing to have to walk out, having reviewed a draft of the new restrictions. From now on, there will be few, if any, independent journalists in the building to question top defense officials or to banter with the troops. The restrictions will likely reach military installations across the country and overseas as well. We won’t be seeing service members on the front lines, out at sea, or aboard cargo planes—unless it’s through imagery approved by the Defense Department. Some of my colleagues have put their lives on the line in defense of the public’s right to information.
Reporting in this new environment will not be easy. Even before today, the Pentagon severely restricted the flow of information to the American public. As the sound of packing tape sliding across moving boxes reverberated in our bullpen yesterday, reporters noticed a social-media post by Trump announcing that the U.S. had struck a boat near Venezuela, killing six alleged narco traffickers. As we had after the four previous strikes, we asked Pentagon officials what kind of ordnance the U.S. military used, the legal basis for the strike, and the identities of those who were killed. The Pentagon declined to answer. Similarly, officials have given scant information about the deployment of National Guard troops on American soil—in Portland, Oregon; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Memphis; and Los Angeles—with more likely to follow.
Read: The boat strikes are just the beginning
As we packed up our belongings this week-–thick reports, battered helmets, expired Girl Scout cookies—department officials walked through the media area to assess what would soon be their space. The six closet-size booths assigned to television networks were largely bare, emptied of video equipment. Those spaces allowed the public to hear the phrase “Live from the Pentagon” through the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, on 9/11, and, more recently, after U.S. strikes on Iran. Because it usually takes years for reporters to feel truly comfortable in their knowledge of the Pentagon, many stay on for decades. In the print bullpen, home to a few notorious pack rats, we scrounged through papers that dated back to the previous century as well as more recent evidence that the military had once been far friendlier to the press. That included a 2007 Air Force Public Affairs directory, which listed contact information at every base. It was 86 pages. Meanwhile, we couldn’t even say goodbye to the Air Force press desk today, because their offices are located in an area Hegseth had already deemed off-limits.
One way to reach our offices was to walk through a corridor dedicated to the military’s commitment to engaging with the press. At the end is a large sign outlining the department’s Principles of Information, signed less than two months after the 9/11 attacks.
“It is the policy of the Department of Defense to make available timely and accurate information so that the public, the Congress, and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy” the George W. Bush–era document states. “A free flow of general and military information shall be made available, without censorship or propaganda, to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their dependents.”
The day before our departure, one reporter placed signs throughout our soon-to-be-vacated spaces that read Journalism is not a crime. As soon as members of Hegseth’s staff saw the signs, they tore them down.
The Atlantic · Nancy A. Youssef · October 15, 2025
24. Defense Trade Press Statement on Media Restrictions at the Pentagon
Defense Trade Press Statement on Media Restrictions at the Pentagon
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/10/defense-trade-press-statement-media-restrictions-pentagon/408816/
By Defense One Staff
The following is a joint statement by defense publications regarding the Pentagon’s new restrictions on media. Released on Oct. 15, 2025, the statement is co-signed by Defense One.
For decades, the defense trade media has been a trusted source of news and insight about Defense Department programs, budgets, and strategy. Ethical, accurate, and timely reporting makes that possible. The public, industry, and indeed the department itself benefit from granting credentialed defense reporters access to unclassified areas in the Pentagon and from the trust engendered by that access.
The Pentagon has been seeking to impose unprecedented restrictions on journalists’ ability to cover the military for several months. Having restricted where unescorted media may go in the Pentagon—such that even visiting the public affairs offices of the military services now requires an escort—department leaders are asking reporters to sign a document acknowledging a vague new policy that, on its face, appears to contravene the First Amendment. This policy threatens to punish reporters who ask legitimate questions in the course of their daily work and to impose material harm on our news organizations for factual reporting.
Journalists from the undersigned defense trade publications will not sign this new policy. Our newsrooms will continue to cover topics of military, defense, and national security fairly and independently.
- Aviation Week
- Breaking Defense
- Defense Daily
- Defense One
- Defense News
- Inside Defense
- Military Times
- USNI News
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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